


Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd

by MrsVonTrapp



Category: Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985) & Related Fandoms, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-02-13 03:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21487465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsVonTrapp/pseuds/MrsVonTrapp
Summary: Beyond the reach of time and space and even sense, she repeated his name now; a mournful mantra to her missed hopes. Gilbert… all began and ended with him...My fond addition to the oft-mined time at the end of Anne of the Island; what happened in the long weeks between Anne's 'Book of Revelation' and 'When Love Takes up the Glass of Time'? What happens when love and potential loss are realised in the same moment?This is a canon-compliant story hoping to fill in some gaps and explore paths not taken by LMM, from the time Anne and Gilbert reconnect through to their marriage. It stands separate to my other one-shots but can certainly be read alongside them. I love Anne of the Island and Anne's House of Dreams, and hope this does them justice.
Relationships: Diana Barry & Anne Shirley, Diana Barry/Fred Wright, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, John Blythe/Marilla Cuthbert, Jonas Blake/Philippa Gordon, Marilla Cuthbert & Anne Shirley, Philippa Gordon & Anne Shirley
Comments: 77
Kudos: 151





	1. Drowning

* * *

_ **Anne** _

* * *

Anne Shirley was rather used to making unequal bargains with God, but in the wind-lashed night of her bitterest revelation, she begged of Him things unholy and untold but to her secret self. _Dear Lord… I ask of nothing but that you save Gilbert, and if you cannot save him, that you take me alongside him. For I will not… cannot… remain on this earth without him._

God had evidently been displeased with her audacity, or else did not much care for the offer of her own soul, for the rain beat down over the shivering fields in unimpressed answer. The Haunted Wood, once hallowed haven, was now _full of the groans of mighty trees wrung in the tempest, and the air throbbed with the thunderous crash of billows on the distant shore.*_

Anne paced, stockinged feet freezing against the floorboards, thinking of a lone, rogue apple tree beyond the marsh, and whether having survived all else it would survive this. Would God take the tree but not Gilbert? Or was the explorer forever bound to his discovery? She murmured this as she murmured other things she would barely remember; an unending incantation of pleas for the present interspersed with agonised apologies for the past, and all too late. Too late to forgive him his long-ago schoolboy taunt and his trespass, even if _the iron had entered into (her) soul._ ** Too late to thank him properly for fishing her out of the pond; an unlikely Lancelot to her Elaine. Too late to accept a dance with him, though she wore his lilies at her waist and had begun the evening with his pink heart by her breast. And much, much too late to take back words so painful and untrue… _I never, never can love you -- in that way -- Gilbert. You must never speak of this to me again._ ***

_I love you I love you I love you…_ she whispered now, dropping to her knees before the candle in the window, the steady flame of which became her constant; the light of her life, as Gilbert was. She repeated the vow until she was hoarse, fervently wishing her words would reach him in his fever. If she called out his name as Rochester had Jane, would he hear her? Beyond the reach of time and space and even sense, she repeated his name now; a mournful mantra to her missed hopes. Gilbert… all began and ended with him; her very own Genesis. In the new-despair that plunged to depths she had never dared reckon on, frightening and fathomless, she clasped his name to her and clasped her hands to her heart and prayed _he would not go away from this life thinking that she did not care._ *

_ The storm raged all night, but when the dawn came it was spent,_ * as was she. Anne saw a _fairy fringe of light on the skirts of darkness. Soon the eastern hilltops had a fire-shot ruby rim._ * She didn’t know if she dared greet the new day and the news it might bring with it. Here, in this little east gable room, she could safeguard herself against the_ black years of emptiness_ * with the cold comfort of denial and delay. _The clouds rolled themselves away into great, soft, white masses on the horizon; the sky gleamed blue and silvery._ * She stared out in disbelief that the world could be washed new full of such beauty and promise; such an unexpected gift, fearing for what – or whom – had been taken instead in the exchange.

Anne rose from her knees, welcoming the sharp protest of aching joints, relaced her boots with unfeeling fingers and crept downstairs. _The freshness of the rain-wind blew against her white face as she went out into the yard, and cooled her dry, burning eyes._ * Later she would remember there had been a brief conversation; a _merry rollicking whistle_ and a desperate question, and an assurance from an unlikely source that seized her heart with a sharp joy that pierced her. Though she would remember little except those two words; _He’s better._ * She knew she stood under the willows; she knew she saw new-blown roses; she knew she heard birds trilling. She might have even realised that she set off, through the woods and beyond the marsh, and in the circle of early morning sunlight there stood an apple tree, stripped bare of any lingering blossoms, but still existing; proud and strong and safe. As was he.

Anne found herself at Blythe farm, and at a door she had dared not darken of late with her unappreciated presence. Mr Blythe had always greeted her in the village with a soft smile and a kind word, even past the point where she might have deserved them, but Mrs Blythe had these two years regarded her with the reproachful eyes and thin lips of the mother whose beloved boy had been wronged, and whose heart would always carry the anguish and accusation of his betrayal. It mattered not. He was alive, and God had upheld his end of the bargain, and it was her turn to repay with relief and remorse and recompense.

Mrs Blythe opened the door; her attractive face pale and drawn, her hair straggling from her haphazard bun in unnoticed escape, and only her eyes lit with a new hope that fought the deep shadows etched beneath them. The two women stared at one another, the haunted, dishevelled appearance of each an ironic echo; in mirthless mimic of the night’s shared purgatory.

“Anne Shirley?” Mrs Blythe croaked.

“M…Mrs Blythe…” the name trembled on her lips, and Anne felt herself swaying in turn. “Is… is he…?”

Dark brows drew upwards in their own question, and then lowered in grim understanding.

“He’s been spared, praise God.”

Anne felt the sway drift into shake, to shudder, to sag… to be told, beyond any doubt, that it was true.

“I’m sorry…” she breathed raggedly. “I… d… didn’t know…”

Whether she meant to explain I didn’t know that he was sick… or I didn’t know that I loved him… she could not say, and they were interchangeable understandings anyway. From this moment forth there would be no distinction for her between them, and she would wear her wretchedness willingly, as penitence for her pride and her purposeful willingness to overlook what the bond was that had held her to Gilbert -- to think that the _flattered fancy she had felt for Roy Gardner had been love. And now she must pay for her folly as for a crime._ *

Behind the resolute figure of his wife came Mr Blythe, tiredness and worry still stooping his shoulders, but eyes lighting with the curiosity she had so often noted in his son’s.

“Why Anne…” he greeted, and if puzzled by her unscheduled, inappropriate early hour call he was too polite – and still too weary – to note it. “Did you come for news of Gil?”

Her courage and her composure began to fail her, and she could do nothing but offer the cutting she had taken, breaking off the deep-green summer foliage as carefully as any medical student undertaking their first incision.

“It… it’s from… his apple tree,” she rasped, not daring to think, let alone substitute, the use of pronoun… _his_ for _ours._

“Gilbert is only just out of danger. He is a long way off receiving any visitors,” Mrs Blythe made indignant reply, her exhaustion sidelined to her righteous anger, though it wavered as her eyes followed her husband’s broad hand as it reached out and accepted her gift, her talisman, her apology… and perhaps her goodbye.

“Thank you,” John Blythe added apologetically. “We’ll put it by his bedside. It will be sure to cheer him when he wakes.”

Anne nodded, beyond further words, and turned for the long trek back to Green Gables, where an increasingly frantic Marilla helped her inside and upstairs, holding her as the sobs convulsed her slight frame, till she allowed herself to be cajoled into bed, cradled in her work-worn arms and crooned into dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My story title is from Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam: A.H.H.’ (1849) written of course for his great friend from Cambridge days, Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of cerebral haemorrhage in 1833. 
> 
> And we remember, always, this is the cruel, swift stroke that took the wonderful, gorgeous Jonathan Crombie from us in 2015.
> 
> *Anne of the Island (Ch 40)  
**Anne of Green Gables (Ch 15)  
***Anne of the Island (Ch 20)
> 
> I am terribly sorry to have forgotten to copy over these notes when I first posted this chapter!


	2. Waking

* * *

_ **Gilbert** _

* * *

At first it was the smell that disorientated him; of sick-bed and sweat, camphor and carbolic acid, overlayed by the sweet, desperate disguise of rose. Embalmed in the sheets which stuck to him as slick cocoon, Gilbert Blythe felt the fog of confusion slowly clear to clarity, and for the one awful, infinitesimal moment, he almost wished again for delirium.

He had no more idea of day or time or even season than a new-birthed babe, and was likewise as weak and as helpless. The light stretched behind the curtains in either dawn greeting or sunset farewell, but he had lost the ability to distinguish between them, and perhaps the will to care.

“Darling…” crooned a gentle voice at his ear, and cool hands met his forehead in concern and caress. “Oh, darling, we thought we’d lost you…”

“Ma?” he rasped, turning his head, struggling to focus on the figure before his glazed eyes, even as the dim light flared and she blazed briefly, cruelly, with tresses of fire, before they settled and reformed into the black smoke of his mother’s familiar hue.

“Oh, _Gilbert_…” the voice and hand shook in tandem, and he read the worry and grief still hovering just beneath the surface.

“I… I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry _for_, son,” his father’s deep, modulated tones calmed and soothed he and his mother both, and John Blythe moved to stand beside his wife, framed within Gilbert’s narrow field of vision; a tableau of parental love and support on which he’d depended all his life. “We are so very happy to see you out the other side of this. You… you fought so bravely, Gil.”

He tried not to hear the way his father’s voice broke on his name, or the way his ordeal had aged them so swiftly and shockingly. Once he had vowed he would dedicate his life to the fight against the Great Destroyer, not ever anticipating _he_ would be one of its targets. If he was truly through this… if the living white-heat nightmare of the past however many days or weeks was properly over… well, the fight against it was all he had now. He would have to double down his efforts in all respects, starting with his parents… but first, he had to keep his eyes open.

“Dad. I… I…”

“Rest now, love…” his mother pleaded. “Drink, and rest…”

He was assisted in a sip of water; a trickle of relief upon a parched wasteland. But he did not have the energy for anything more, and his eyelids fluttered closed the moment his head met the pillow.

* * *

Darkness now, but for the lamp casting shadows flitting like malevolent spirits along the far wall. He might have been diverted by their dance if other more immediate concerns did not press upon him. He ached_ all over. _His larynx felt as if it had been ripped out and hastily shoved back down his trachea. He had some sort of fading red, spotty rash scattered across his torso, barely discernible, when he could raise his thundering head enough to examine it. His long, leaden fingers poked around his worryingly distended stomach, though it could contain nothing but his own bloodied membranes. He was weak and sweat-stained and he _smelt. _

He tried to pull himself to something approaching sitting, but grunted so in the effort he awoke his dozing father attempting a moment’s respite in the nearby chair.

“Son… _easy_! Easy does it…” John urged, arm around the shrunken figure of his beautiful boy, grown so gaunt and pallid, his broad frame having no flesh to support it, body hanging limply off his bones as if an overlarge coat dangling off a hanger.

Gilbert’s head reeled from the rush of altered gravity, and his noisy breaths showed the strain of even this small physical action.

“I feel… _pummelled,_” he gritted his teeth, only barely loosening his jaw to accept more water, which he tried not to gulp. “And I smell like…something one of… the cats… dug up.”

John gave him a genuine smile that strove to reach his tired eyes, though his manner soon became meditative. “I’m sorry, Gil. I know you must feel wretched. But these past two days… they were the worst of all. We couldn’t risk even giving you a sponge bath.” He rubbed Gilbert’s sweaty back with a touching gentleness. “Doc Spencer will be here soon, and he will be able to give the final word on whether we can make you decent again.”

“Well, at least I haven’t had to worry about r-receiving… _company,” _he joked grimly.

“Er, no. Not exactly…” his father hedged, saved from Gilbert’s questioning look by the fortuitous arrival of the good doctor, trailed by Mrs Blythe.

“Well now, Gilbert, and aren’t you a welcome sight!” Dr Spencer greeted warmly, a studied relief in his assessing glance. “You’ve given your parents quite the worry these past weeks.”

“Weeks?” Gilbert echoed weakly.

“Nearly four, all told,” Dr Spencer confirmed, meeting his knowledgeable patient’s eye. “The full breadth and scope of symptoms I’m afraid, though mercifully clear of the most extreme complications.” He allowed a beat of time for this realisation to sink in, and Gilbert’s brows drew together in almost pained concentration, trying to remember all he had read on the progression of typhoid - trying to remember anything he had ever studied at all - through the haze and fog of his muddled mind. He remembered coming home, deservedly exultant over the Cooper and his final results, but being so very worn and tired and lethargic…

“No…_ complications?_” he whispered.

“None,” Dr Spencer gave a reassuring smile and a resolute shake of the head. “Luck has most certainly been on your side.” His firm hand felt forehead, back and chest, and Gilbert’s parents withdrew respectfully whilst the examination was completed, returning with hopeful expressions that transformed to an ecstatic outpouring of happiness when Gilbert was pronounced most definitely out of danger, and able to attempt some thin, watery soup… and a sponge bath.

His mother ushered out their most welcome visitor, waylaying him downstairs to go through his explicit instructions for when to slowly reintroduce solid foods and some careful attempts at exercise, and ensuring he departed with a hearty supply of preserves.

Back upstairs in the room that had been both hospital and prison, Gilbert and his father conducted a conversation that was only marginally less awkward than the sponge bath that accompanied it. Gilbert was already fading, particularly having to be moved as John clumsily navigated the changing of sheets, but was stubbornly questioning of his conduct whilst in the full grip of the horrors of his fever.

“Dad… did I say anything disturbing or terrible? I can’t remember much of anything.”

“Gil, son, you were delirious. Whatever you said or didn’t say, there’s no way you could be held accountable for that.”

Gilbert expelled a pained breath. “So I _did _ramble on then…”

John had fetched fresh pyjamas, and now threaded arms and legs through them, straining to manage Gilbert’s dead weight. “You didn’t so much _ramble _as _argue…” _his father chuckled appreciatively. “Mostly with _yourself. _It’s quite the gift.”

Gilbert gave a halfhearted groan, without the energy to put much force behind it. “Now I just sound like an _idiot._”

“Yes, indeed. The Cooper Prize recipient is _quite _the idiot,” his father shook his head amusedly, not knowing how he could ever properly express his admiration for his brilliant, broken boy. “And it wasn’t just with yourself. You often sparred with – “ John, seemingly on the cusp of some revelation, halted suspiciously, and changed direction inexpertly. “Well, I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d taken on Aunt Mary Maria herself.”

Gilbert would not be sidetracked, and as his father refastened the buttons of his pyjama top his glittering hazel eyes were large in his face as he searched his father’s.

“_Her,” _he choked out. “You can say it, Dad. I argued with _her.”_

He didn’t know why he was surprised. He had argued and debated with her all his life; why would she not be the adversary of his delirium too? He didn’t much recall his words, of how his indignation had ran the gamut from vague mutterings mumbled under his breath, to carefully calibrated arguments, shouted with sudden and alarming alacrity. But he remembered the feeling, of escalating anxiety and a desperate thrashing about, as if he struggled with a fierce invisible foe, even as his body fought a bitter battle with itself. Here mutter and shout would give way to agonised gasp; a drowning man reaching for his last breath, and at this point he could not know that his mother would have to flee the room to keep company with her fulsome flood of tears, and only his father’s calm, unwavering assurance, as he who knew what it was to gasp and strain for air, could steady and settle him.

“What did I _say, _Dad?” he felt his voice waver horribly, struggling to swallow down the bitter bile that rose in his throat. _Oh, God_… he had tried to protect them from the worst of his suffering, not knowing that it might inadvertently escape him through all _this. _He turned pleading eyes back to his father. “What did I _say_?”

“Gilbert…” his father’s expression had turned grim, and he looked down at the long fingers, claw-like now as they clutched his sleeve, in agonised indecision.

“_Dad…” _he urged.

John straightened up the fresh bedclothes around him, flicking a sorrowful glance at the pale, resolute face.

“Nothing, son. You said nothing we didn’t know already, or… _suspected, _anyway,” he admitted reluctantly.

_Oh, God… so it was as bad as THAT… _Gilbert felt he might be sick, if he had anything in him to vomit up as it was. His body still retched convulsively in sympathy, though, and his father hushed him, soothing him as he did the animals when they were frightened or skittish, and then urged him to some more water.

Gilbert sat back against the pillows propped behind him, exhausted. It was such a terrible irony. _Must _she follow him _everywhere_, even to his sickbed? Did he have to continue to be tortured, even on the edge of consciousness?

_She didn’t care… she didn’t care… she didn’t care…_

What on earth was the _point_ of any of it?

He writhed internally in new guilt, because he was vaguely aware he must have, in the endless hours, begged for death. He suspected it at any case, with an inevitable certainty. That would have destroyed his parents, certainly, and he was sorry for the selfish succumb, though he was darkly diverted by the thought as to whether _she _would have appeared at his wake, weeping and white-faced, beautifully tragic with her titian hair in stark contrast to her black mourning…

_Argh… _he groaned, turning his face away and into the pillow. _Don’t DO this to yourself! She didn’t care, and she was with Gardner anyway, undoubtedly sporting some obscenely large ring and swanning about Kingsport. _

It _hurt, _though, that she didn’t care as a _friend. _Through all their years together, he had thought that might have counted for _something. _Here he was, back from the brink of death, and she couldn’t even send word to him. Or maybe she was waiting until it was all over, so she didn’t double up on her correspondence… _Dear Mr and Mrs Blythe, I am very sorry for your loss…_

“Gil…” his father was saying, hand on his shoulder, calling him back to them. “Gil, we need to tell you that – “

The confession was lost in the shuffle of his mother returning, proudly bearing a tray holding a bowl of brown water, which might have substituted for soup, and a stack of envelopes.

“Oh, darling!” she exclaimed, bypassing notice of the grimace on his face and his glittering eyes. “There have been constant callers for the last hour! That was Fred just now, who looks about as tired as _you _do, love, and Mrs Harmon, who seems to have bowled over Dr Spencer in her haste to get here, and the Reverend, who has come to pray with us every evening, and he didn’t even _know_ that…” she flicked a glance at the two suspiciously quiet men in and by the bed, and her excitable monologue petered out, deflating along with her posture, which crumpled in on itself as she set the tray on the bedside table with a loud clink.

“I’m sorry…” she shuddered now, struggling for words where a moment ago they had gushed from her in giddy relief. “I’m sorry, love… the doctor warned me not to overwhelm you and I… it’s just that we’ve waited so _long _to be able to say that you…” she broke off, covered her face in her hands, and began to sob.

“Ma!” Gilbert gasped, horrified, forgetting his own pain in the raw, naked display of his mother’s before him. “Oh, Ma…”

John Blythe was up in an instant, wrapping his arms around her, transferring his comfort from one Blythe to another. “There, there, Ella, love, it’s alright… it’s alright, now…”

Gilbert, prostate in the bed, dashed at his own tear with a heavy, tired hand. He felt frayed as an old carpet and just as worn, useless to know how to comfort she who had been through so much on his behalf.

Turning his eyes away, his gaze fell to the tray. He recoiled from the smell - and indeed the very _thought_ – of digesting anything, but he could force down a few mouthfuls. _This,_ at least, he could do for her.

“Mind that doesn’t get cold now, Ma…” he offered gamely as Ella Blythe dried her tears on her husband’s hankerchief, and she gave him a grateful, watery smile, mirrored in that of his father’s behind her, who added a nod of knowing of his own.

His mother fussed now with napkin, moving the tray and a card aside, and a vase of roses too, revealing another vase of botanical offering; a sprig of summer green, with nothing but leaves and dusky buds and not much else to recommend it. Gilbert stared at it curiously, his brows drawing together in puzzlement.

“Dad? You wanted to bring some of the orchard inside for me?” he tried to joke, indicating to the bedside table with an incline of his head, and might have forgotten about the unusual offering entirely, if not for the revealing reaction of both his parents to his words.

John Blythe looked to his wife, who gave an agonised look to him in return, not unnoticed by their son staring up at the both of them.

“Gil…” John Blythe seemed to have made some sort of decision, though his mother still opened her mouth as in protest before closing it again. “Your fever broke very early this morning. There was only us and Doctor Spencer here, though, er, Pacifique Buote has been helping out with some of the chores, and he was here in case we… we… had to send word to the Fletchers.”

The silence hung heavy, the evening glow of the lamp in the darkened room illuminating the new lines on his father’s still-handsome face. Gilbert didn’t want to think of what message may have been sent in different circumstances, and his throat worked against the dread realisation.

“Later… we had a visitor… that is, they just wanted to enquire of you, and to leave – “

“Can I see that?” Gilbert interrupted on a harsh note, reaching out to the table.

“Gilbert…” his mother sniffed, warningly.

“Here, son,” his father held out the little vase, which he had to cradle with both hands, his diminished strength hardly equal to the task.

“Your soup really _will _grow cold…” his mother offered in ineffectual protest, which he had to ignore.

Gilbert stared with blistering eyes at the offering, leaning in to trace the faint scent with his nose, which was wilder and rangier than that of any cultivated orchard around these parts, with a tang that he could never properly describe. He could hardly fathom what it would be doing here, this little branch by his sick bed that could have been his death bed; this little hint of times past, this echo of other years, when before their college journey started he had taken a girl on another journey. To a tree through the woods by her home, beyond the marsh… to a tree that he was fairly sure only two people on this earth knew about, or would even care to.

_To care… to care… to care…_

“I don’t understand…” he gritted, hands shaking so badly his mother swiftly rescued the vase before it was upended all over him and the fresh launderings of the newly made bed. “Who _brought _this?”

His wild eyes found his father’s, staring with an intensity that was more than a little fevered, and would have caused a lesser mortal to stagger back in shock. The answer came in that calm tone on the edge of pain and apology, though Gilbert had no need of answer now, and was beyond the possibility of explanation.

“Anne.”


	3. Doubting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you one and all for your lovely response to this story! 
> 
> Things, of course, are darkest before the dawn, and so it will remain for these two... for a little while longer x

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

** **

Every time Anne closed her eyes, she saw only _his. _

Curious, humorous, mischievous, hopeful, loving… disappointed, furious, hurt, cold, empty…

She would peer anxiously in the glass to make sure she wasn’t a dream; that she was actually here and that she existed, when she seemed so little and unworthy and insubstantial, as Phil had once written to her of her feelings upon meeting Jonas. Anne felt untethered; adrift. She had not realised how _he_ had been her mainstay; both buoy and anchor. She had not understood through all the years how she had gamely fought the current, priding herself on navigating those treacherous waters alone, only to turn and look for his light the moment she ever neared the rocks…

_ Forgive these wild and wandering cries, _

_ Confusions of a wasted youth; _

_ Forgive them where they fail in truth, _

_And in thy wisdom make me wise. _*

He _lived_, by some miraculous intervention; God, or Providence, or by marvellous virtue of _the Blythe constitution in his favour._ ** To whatever spiritual or mystical means she owed his life, she was grateful, so very grateful, and that must be enough.

_It wasn’t enough._

He would recover; he would marry Christine. Or, in the unlikely event it wasn’t Christine, then someone else. Someone who deserved his blistering intellect, and his brave ambition, and his easy charm, and his generous humour, and his touching attentiveness, and his earnest, unfussy romanticism. Someone for whom he would compose a sonnet in dedication to their eyebrows, raising his own in jest as he recited it drolly, with that knowing quirk to his lips. She had always decried him as a possible suitor – to Diana, to Marilla, to herself – holding fast to her melancholy, dark-eyed, inscrutable ideal. She saw that now for what it was; the stubborn adherence to the safe dreams of girlhood, not acknowledging that true love came in a thousand little acts of kindness, more probably as _an old friend through quiet ways, _and not as a_ gay knight riding down._ *** He had gifted her these multitude kindnesses at every turn, even, as with the Avonlea school, at considerable inconvenience and expense to himself, and even when she had done so little to deserve them.

_If she had not been so blind – so foolish – she would have the right to go to him now. _** Someone whose right it was to sit by his bedside; to mop his brow; to stroke his wayward curls; to read to him his favourite novel; to debate all from Darwin to Dickens; to press a chaste kiss to his cheek, with the promise of more when he was well. She had spurned his advances ever since she was eleven and he still thirteen; how many more times was he expected to forgive her such folly? How many more times was he expected to subjugate himself to her juvenile whims?

_… Till this moment I never knew myself…_ she sighed alongside Lizzy Bennet, and so too her own _sense of shame was severe. _****

Days passed to her fevered writings and her meandering walks and her obsessional baking. She would rise with the dawn to concoct a fresh batch of contrition, ready to deposit, surreptitiously, at his door. Marilla would soon protest they were running out of baskets, but she could not think of anything else she could do for him, unseen and from afar. She would not in any way attempt to gain admittance to see him, even when it reached the point when visitors could be admitted. For she knew with the dread-knowledge of those reproachful eyes and that _frosty bow _that Mrs Blythe, once so _merry _and _young-hearted _***** towards her, would not welcome her willingly, and she could not find fault in her doubtless-ready reasonings, for they were her own... Anne had broken his heart, repeatedly and without care. She had driven him to the brink of exhaustion, all-too ready for the waiting arms of illness. She had been cold and cavalier in her friendship with him, using Christine as a bargaining tool_; you want all of her, so you shall have none of me… _Not even a dance, that one dance at the Convocation Ball, though she had earlier chosen his lilies over Roy’s violets, in unfairness to both men. And she remembered the _flash _of his eyes at _this, _too…

Anne prepared with heavy heart, now; had her basket packed and was at the door when a determined tread was heard on the stairs; she looked up, startled, to see Marilla coming down, dressed for visiting and with a frightening look of determination on her face as was rarely seen outside of some to-do concerning Davy.

“Marilla!” Anne gulped, edging the basket behind her and trying to manoeuvre her lighter coat across her shoulders at the same time. “I hope I didn’t wake you!”

“Not any more than the other four times this week, Anne,” came severe reply, which softened as she came closer to her beloved, bewildering girl.

“I was just… going for a walk. I’ll be back before long.”

Marilla swept over to the bench, where Anne’s decoy tray of plum puffs for her own household were sitting in reproach. “Perhaps you could have the Blythes make requests,” she offered mildly, “so that I can better plan my orders at the store.”

Anne reddened shamefacedly. “Marilla, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go behind your back. I only…”

“Anne, it is not proper to be in Gilbert’s company under these circumstances without my knowledge, or Rachel’s for that matter. We all praise God that he is recovering, but you still have your reputation to consider.”

Anne, appalled, opened and closed her mouth ineffectually. “Marilla, I… I don’t go _inside! _And I certainly haven’t… seen… _him_.”

Marilla Cuthbert puffed her chest in indignation, a rare, disconcerting and unconscious echo of Mrs Lynde. “You mean to tell me Ella Blythe has you cooling your heels on the porch steps after you have baked for hours?”

“I… I…” Anne stammered, reddening. “I wouldn’t know her want. I don’t knock. I just leave the basket and go.”

There was a beat of astonished silence whilst Marilla considered this.

“Sit down, Anne,” she directed firmly but not unkindly. “We’ll breakfast first. I am not about to call on the Blythes on an empty stomach.”

Anne’s face swiftly morphed from red to green. “Marilla, I can’t _call _on them! I… I… turned up at their door the other morning, half-wild and babbling, and I… I… I can’t face them again!”

She felt herself slumping against the door, dangerously close to tears.

“Anne, love, Gilbert would be _more_ than happy to see you. _Especially _now.”

She shook her head miserably, and her response was barely above a whisper. “No… he hates me. And he has every reason to.”

“Anne, you refused him _years _ago… he has been friends with you since, hasn’t he? He took it in good grace?”

She felt herself quailing, and the basket dropped to the floor, though luckily its contents remained undamaged. “How did… how did… you know? I didn’t tell anyone. No one knew… save for Phil…”a_nd possibly everyone in Patty’s Place…and Miss Lavender, and most likely Gilbert’s parents… “_And later… Diana.”

Marilla gave her a pitying look, crossing over to take her lovely face in her creased hands, catching the tears as they came.

“You think I wouldn’t know how low you were, after, and wonder why you would never speak of him, or why he wouldn’t write or call?” Marilla asked gently.

“I… I… I’m sorry. I should have told you!” Anne sobbed. “I was just afraid you’d be… _disappointed _in me. Gilbert was and Phil was and Diana was and Mrs Blythe was… I couldn’t bear for _you_ to be, too.”

Marilla took out a hankerchief to mop Anne’s now worryingly pale face.

“I _was _disappointed at first… _grievously disappointed,” _***** Marilla ventured with a sad, wry smile. “But that was to do with _myself, _Anne, as much as it was for you. I shouldn’t have ever expected you to right _my _past wrongs.”

Anne composed herself with difficulty, mopping blindly at her tears.

“And how do I right my _own?” _she asked bitterly.

“We go after breakfast, _together, _to be received properly. You begin again. You ask to be his friend, as he always wanted to be yours.”

Those grave, grey eyes widened. “And if… he is to marry Christine?”

“I don’t know this girl you speak of, Anne. Where _is _she in all this? I don’t hear of her sitting all hours by his bedside. But, regardless… do you really want a future in which Gilbert has no part in it at all?”

The words echoed what Phil had said to her after that awful time in the orchard of Patty’s Place… and how she had mused of _a_ _world without any Gilbert in it _being such a _lonely, forlorn place… _She knew what that world looked like, now. She not only _felt _but _knew _that _something incalculably precious had gone out of her life_ ****** that day. She would do anything to get it back.

Anne shook her head slowly, and allowed herself to be led to the table, plied with fortifying tea and a nibbled plum puff, and then as Rachel Lynde came to see them depart, she had that lady’s approving smile to bolster her all the way to the Blythe’s.

* * *

** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

** **

He woke every morning with the remembrance of her eyes, and how their chameleon-like changeability heralded her mood. He tried to recall when those eyes had truly sparked with the passion and zest she was so known for, even when directed in anger or frustration or exasperation at _him, _and found it was years since he had last properly seen that look, and he did not want to ponder what part _he_ had played in affecting that change.

Instead, he pondered an apple tree and plum puffs.

She had always been an alluring enigma, and this used to fantastically entice him. He would lie awake at night, once he had won the hard-earned favour of her friendship, attempting to decode her moods and decipher her motivations. Now he found it an exercise in frustration. He was a Man of Science at heart, soon to become a student of medicine, and he just wanted some plain answers to plain questions.

Such as why the fiancée of one man was secretly baking for another.

Such as why she would wear his flowers and yet refuse him a dance.

Such as why, as he lay fighting for life (or cheating death, depending on the darkness of his current perspective) she was roaming the woods like that veritable dryad of old and offering up a sprig of their apple tree to his bewildered parents.

What did any of it _mean?_

He received cards and letters by the day, from Kingsport to New Brunswick, wishing him well, delighted in his ongoing recovery, but not a word from _her_ – she who spent her _life_ fashioning and savouring words - not a note or a line or a verse. He had often dreamed what it would be like to receive a proper letter from Anne Shirley; a love letter that might have to be sequestered away, only perused in private – and there had been some very low points when he had longed to think he might receive one from the future Anne _Blythe – _but now those dreams had turned to dust. His long-cherished hopes lay as abandoned apples on the ground, rotting, dissolving back into the earth. As _he _had nearly done.

Gilbert sighed deeply and hauled his battered body out of bed. He was slowly regaining his strength, if not his looks – still frowningly pale and skeletal – but at least he was able to dress and wash himself now, with time and not a little effort. He was taking turns about the room and up and down the landing, and might make a break for it down the stairs today, if Dr Spencer and his mother allowed it. He was finally onto solid foods – if stewed apple and stewed vegetables could really be classified as either – and might be permitted a plum puff, if his stomach and his conscience didn’t recoil from the thought.

He washed, dressed, despaired of his wild hair, and had just opened his bedroom door to call down for breakfast, when he heard new voices in conversation. Perhaps Fred had returned, after his visit yesterday, beaming at Gilbert’s upturn in health and the joys of fatherhood? Or Uncle George running some errand?

_No._

_Female _voices.

_A particular _female voice.

A particular soft – _unusually _soft, in this instance – melodious voice, which had acted as a siren song to him from the moment he had first heard it, before he had tugged her red braid that day - a world ago away - and the voice had changed key sharply, leaping from melody to shriek.

The voice he could have sworn had called to him - incredibly, incomprehensibly, inconceivably – during the fierce final night of his fever, when in his darkest despair he had cried her name, and she had answered.

He backed into the room; standing, swaying, struck dumb.

“Gil?” his father appeared in the doorway. “Are you ready for a visitor?”


	4. Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to one of my favourite chapters! 
> 
> When I first envisaged this story, this was the chapter (and particularly the opening scene) that was very clear in my mind. I'm excited to share it with you!

* * *

_ **Gilbert** _

* * *

There were certainly far less fraught circumstances in which a twenty-two year old woman and a twenty-five year old man might meet in a bedroom.

This wasn’t, alas, to be the momentous culmination of the many fantasies that had fuelled the frustrated haze of his adolescence; or the yearning ache accompanying his early adulthood; or even the angry throb of longing that had followed him these last two years. There was a pain, though; the dull, ever present twinge he had carried since Convocation, made suddenly, searingly acute; to have her _here, _hesitating in the doorway, flamed-haired and lily-scented, though her eyes were huge and grey and shadowed and wondering, and her lips trembled when released from their faltering smile.

“Hello, Anne,” he thought it best to offer, and nodded to his father, who left them with a polite smile and a careful look, leaving the door protectively ajar.

“H-Hello, Gilbert,” she offered in return, clutching the coat in her hands tightly. “It… It’s so very good to see you. We were all so terribly worried.”

“Thank you. That is… appreciated,” he offered tightly, not so much in annoyance as due to the fact his throat had regretfully closed over. “Would you… like to sit down?” he gestured to the one chair, though her eyes seemed drawn to the hastily made bed. “I’m afraid I’m a little short on furnishings.”

_And clothes… _he lamented to himself, belting his dressing gown tighter.

She nodded stiffly and settled into the seat, and he took the edge of the bed for want of any alternative, though it put him in worryingly close proximity to those grave grey eyes that had so haunted him, and to the sound of her shallow, uneven breaths.

“Are you… _truly_ on the mend?” she blurted, and then bit her bottom lip as if to stop further unsolicited queries.

“Yes…” he frowned, misreading her discomfort. “My parents wouldn’t have allowed you up here otherwise, Anne, and neither would I.”

“No… that’s not… that’s not what I meant.” Her eyes lifted their gaze to roam over his face, browns coming together in consternation.

“Well, I’m no oil painting at the moment, obviously,” he huffed, offering a chagrined smile which stretched his still-gaunt features. “But then you should have seen me a week ago.”

She met his wry flippancy with a barely disguised horror, mouth opening on a startled breath and auburn brows flying upwards. “Oh, _Gil!_”

This truly drew his attention, and he met her eyes properly for the first time.

“Sorry, Anne. Bad taste, there.”

“I didn’t _know!_” she gasped, meeting his gaze with a look full of anguish. “I’m so sorry, Gil! I was up at the Stone House with the Irvings. Otherwise I would have… I would have come sooner. I didn’t even know you were sick – not till I even came back to Green Gables, the night of the storm.”

“Yes, I heard about the storm. Later, of course,” he placated. “It’s alright, Anne. I would never have expected you to dance attendance on me.”

This remark had far from the desired effect, and seemed to cause her even more aggrievement.

“You think I wouldn’t even have bothered to _come_? You think I wouldn’t have _cared_ if you lived or… or _died_?” she questioned plaintively.

_To care… to care… to care…_

His eyes inadvertently strayed to the apple tree cutting, beginning to show a stubborn, resilient bud of white blossom, and hers followed his look desperately.

“Anne… I didn’t mean to imply that. Of course you’d be… concerned. I only meant that you have… other things to worry about now….” He almost bit back the next words, but felt it was best to get the inevitable agony over with; to pour alcohol over the open wound so it wouldn’t continue to fester and rot; to have the dread admission, finally, from her lips. “That you have… _arrangements _to make,” he ground out.

“Arrangements?” she asked dully.

_God’s teeth, _did she have to be so difficult and obtuse? Did she not have _any _idea how horrendous this was for him?

“Well, naturally. Where you’ll live and…”

“Oh. Yes. Well… ah… Summerside,” she admitted, distractedly.

“_Summerside? _Not Kingsport?”

“Well, no… I applied to schools there too, of course, but – “

“You mean to _teach?_”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“In _Summerside?”_

“It’s a little far, I know… Marilla is concerned by the distance, but… it’s still on the Island, so that I may come visit on weekends and… well… working, ah, _here _wasn’t really an option and… well… it’s a Principalship, you see.”

“I see,” he nodded, though really he didn’t. He couldn’t understand why Roy would want to be separated from her for _any_ length of time, let alone a minimum yearly contract, and it was undoubtedly not an issue of money. His support of her ambitions was laudable but also puzzling; it seemed unlike him. Gilbert thought Anne would have been signed up for every fashionable ladies’ guild and charitable cause in Kingsport already. “That’s… that’s marvellous, Anne. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she answered faintly, coloring.

There was a soft knock at the door, and his mother appeared with a tea tray.

“We thought you might like some refreshments,” she announced uncomfortably, her amazement fighting her relief to see them both calmly seated, conducting what appeared to be a perfectly civilised conversation.

“Ah, tea…” he smiled, eager for the distraction. “Thanks very much, Ma.”

“There are also some plum puffs from Green Gables, fresh baked this morning I’m told,” Mrs Blythe conceded. “That has been very kind of you this week, Anne.”

“Not at all…” Anne murmured, flushing at the sudden appraisal of both he and his mother.

“Perhaps… try a nibble of toast as well, Gilbert,” his mother urged, before leaving them, with an apprehensive air, to their cosily, disconcertingly domestic scene.

“It certainly _was _kind, Anne,” he ventured. “The baking, that is.”

“Oh, well…” she appeared flustered at this, moving around uncomfortably in her seat, “I wasn’t sure if you knew whether… they were from me…”

“You think after all this time I wouldn’t know something from the kitchen of Green Gables?” he raised a derisive eyebrow, and his lips gave a quirk. “_Or _my father, for that matter. Though _he _was the only one of us to be able to indulge in them, as yet.”

She bit her lip at this, though her countenance seemed to relax.

“I have only even been able to have _tea_ since late _yesterday. _There was worry about my hydration and tea actually works as a diuretic. That is, it works to counteract… ah… the retainment of… water.” His face flushed to think of all the things, here he was talking _fluid retention _in his _bedroom _with _Anne._

“You must have plenty of the _right_ liquids, absolutely…” she offered in gently humorous rescue of his embarrassment. “Raspberry cordial would probably _not_ be recommended in this instance…” she gave the tiniest flash of her old smile.

“Certainly not _Marilla’s _version of it, _that’s _for sure…” he gave a hint of his old grin, and her eyes surveyed him with a precious, long-sought green to their depths. He wondered errantly how many of the old stories Gardner knew or cared to know… of the impulsive, eager, vibrant girl long since buried inside her, and not this poised model of perfection. The hint of the old camaraderie _hurt, _now, to think of the friends they had been. Was she only relaxing with him now because she was safeguarded from him and his unwelcome overtures by another man?

“Would you like me to do the honours?” she asked sweetly.

“Yes. Sure. Thanks.”

She removed the coat that had been sitting across her lap all this time, allowing him to fully appreciate her pretty pale blue dress. He loved her in cotton and muslin and lace, with a fairy crown of wildflowers. How long until she was swathed in silks and swaddled in furs? How long before she became a bejewelled society hostess he didn’t recognize anymore?

He had always admired her fingers; long and slim and pale. Had often wondered how it would feel to have them caress his face or knot his tie or _unknot _his tie or tackle his buttons or run her fingers through his hair… he grimaced, disgusted with himself, and turned away, but a fleeting thought made him turn back, and he stared at something he knew was amiss…

“No ring?” he asked suddenly, in a gravelly voice that nearly caused her to miss his cup altogether.

“_Pardon me?_”

“No _ring, _Anne? You needn’t hide it just to spare my feelings_._”

She stilled, replacing the teapot carefully.

“There… there _is _no ring…” she offered in a depthless whisper.

“_No _ring?” he repeated, uncomprehendingly. “I am disappointed he was so ill prepared.” He gave a mocking smirk that was probably beneath him, conveniently forgetting how _he_ had come to her in the orchard at Patty’s Place that desperate, dire day with nothing but the clothes on his back and the misguided love in his heart.

There was something about her look to him that was very, very strange.

“Anne… are you telling me he hasn’t… _proposed _yet_?”_

She put his proffered cup and saucer back down with a loud rattle. “No. He did,” she answered on a quivering breath.

It took her a long time to meet his eyes, which were smarting with the effort to keep his emotions in check. He just wanted to understand what was going _on. _He needed something to stop his unsteady heart from collapsing inside his chest.

“I refused him.”

The words swirled around him like a whirlpool.

“What do you mean… you _refused _him?”

“It is normally not a sentence that needs explanation, Gilbert!” she hissed haughtily.

“I am familiar with the notion _myself,_ Anne,” he scowled, “but I am just not understanding it in _this_ instance.”

“I _refused _him. I didn’t _love_ him. Ergo, I couldn’t _marry_ him!”

She had stood in her agitation, cheeks burning, eyes blazing with a wonderful, distracting green. He stared up into them, entranced, even as his world began to tilt wildly off its axis.

“You’re not engaged to him?” he looked up at her, not even recognising the sound of his own voice. “You’re _not engaged_ to Roy Gardner?”

She opened and closed her mouth, but there were no words forming.

“After _two years_ you realised you didn’t love him? At… what? The very _moment _he _proposed _to you?” he was genuinely dumbfounded.

Anne did nothing to contradict his assertion, but stared down at him, aghast.

“God Almighty, Anne, I almost feel sorry for the fellow.”

Her head jerked at that, and she sprung away from him, heading for the door.

“I don’t think you are well enough for us to continue this conversation, Gilbert!” she cried, grasping the handle.

“No! Anne! _Please!” _he edged around the bed and all but flung himself at the door, pressing it shut with some force, the sound hopefully not enough to carry all the way to the parlour but resounding around them in the small room like a ricocheted bullet. She turned to him, mouth agape.

“Gilbert! What are you _doing_? I can’t be … in _here…_ with _you… _like _this!”_

“Anne, I _swear_ to you no harm will come to you or your reputation. The very _last _thing I want is to have you … compromised… in any way. But there is no one to know you are in here like this with me, save the three people downstairs who would _swallow swords _for us, now currently enduring the world’s most awkward morning tea, which for them might feel dangerously close to the same thing. I just…” he closed his eyes briefly, against the sensation of his spinning head. “I’m just… trying… to understand. Help me _understand,_ Anne.”

“I will…” she gulped. “But _please, _Gilbert… come and sit down. You need to have something to drink…”

“When?” he demanded, ignoring her request. “And in God’s name, _why? _I thought all along you refused _me _because I couldn’t live up to… to… your dream of what the ideal man was meant to be and…”

“_Gilbert!” _she cried, appalled. “_Please!_”

“I’m _sorry_, Anne, if this is so painful for you. But I have been wrestling with this for _two years. _I never knew what I could have done to make my suit any more appealing –“

“Your _suit, _Gilbert? Or do you mean your _ambush?”_

Now it was _his _turn to stare in horror, and he backed away from the door and her response, and the accusation embedded in it.

“What do you _mean _by that, Anne?” his heart lurched sickeningly.

“I mean… I mean… I tried so hard, to stop you asking, Gilbert! But you wouldn’t _hear _me! You were like a steam train! I _knew _that it would change everything between us. I _knew! _And it _did, _Gilbert! _Everything _changed! I lost you _forever _that day!”

“I _loved _you, Anne…” he quailed, fumbling for reason in this freefall. “_You _never wanted to hear _me! All _the times I tried to show you how much I cared. To be something more to you. And you wouldn’t let me in. You never let me _try _to be the man for you! I lost _you _that day too, remember! You don’t know how I have berated myself for speaking up that day. I wish to God a thousand times over I’d never opened my mouth!”

Their voices had climbed in octave and volume, but now in the dreadful silence he heard nothing but the sound of his soul dying. She hadn’t loved him. Could never love him. She had told him that in no uncertain terms. But her look to him now made his heart shrivel.

“I came here today to ask if I could be your friend again, Gilbert,” she explained throatily, her eyes darkening to charcoal; not a hint of green to soften the blow. “Because you nearly died, and I would have lost you all over again… _irretrievably._” She paused and took a great, shuddering breath. “But I can see you can’t forgive me for things I did when I didn’t understand myself… for when I was stupid and foolish. I treated you so badly, and I’m so sorry. The orchard at Patty’s Place… and Roy… and…and… C-Convocation… they are things _I _can never take back, either.”

He stared at her, weak and suddenly exhausted.

“You had every right to refuse me, Anne,” he answered, bleakly, running a hand through his curls. “I guess I didn’t ever consider things from your perspective, there. Only mine. _My _feelings. _My _wishes. _My _fear of losing you. And I lost you, anyway.”

There was nothing to say to refute that, and she didn’t even try… just leaned back against the door, her entire being proclaiming her misery… her slight, slumped shoulders, her bloodless lips, her starkly grey eyes.

“But… you mentioned Convocation…” he pressed, because he _was _a steam train, and it was obvious he was beyond any sort of stopping or sense now. “I just can’t _fathom _you there. First the flowers, and then… he breathed deeply, trying not to have his hurt leech out of him. “Not even _one _dance, Anne. Not _one, _after all of the years and the study together and the dreams we exchanged. We had dreamt of that moment since the time we’d been teaching – “

“I _know, _Gilbert!’ she choked out. “That’s why I wore your lilies! Because the moment was _ours. _It didn’t belong to Roy!”

He took a halting half step forward. “Then why the blazes Anne couldn’t you bear to have _one dance_ with me?”

“What does it even _matter_ now? You were with Christine! You had _her _and you didn’t need _me!”_

_“That’s insane, Anne! I have always needed you!”_ is what he should have said. Is what he wanted to say.

“That’s not right, Anne. And it didn’t _make _it right,” were the words he heard himself uttering instead.

She gaped at him, as if trying to hold on to some sort of internal resolution, but then she crumpled before him, muttering brokenly. “You really _do _hate me.”

“No, Anne. _No. _If you think that, even now, then you don’t know me at all.”

He winced at the words, made harsher than he had intended, with the sudden pain that shot through his temple. He didn’t want her to see him like this, weak and incapacitated.

“I won’t keep you…” he pulled open the door again, before staggering away from her to slump back on the bed. “Please go, as you wish. I have no right to ask you to stay.”

“I have no right to think you would want me to…” he thought he heard her murmur, but his head had begun to pound, and the throbbing took precedence over everything.

“Gilbert? Are you alright?” he heard the new panic in her voice as he rubbed roughly at his temples, echoing and far away, seemingly through a long tunnel.

“Headache,” he bit out.

“Gilbert… here… you need to get into bed. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come…” she grasped his side, to manoeuvre him under the covers, not daring to undo his dressing gown and he not bothering to. He fell back against the pillows, upright but only barely, as she fumbled with the water pitcher, closing his eyes tight against the sensation of his brain being tugged out through his ears. Anne pressed a glass to his lips moments later, and he gulped it as a child, greedy for the refreshment and her nearness, his hand coming over hers and his overbright, glazed hazel eyes lifting to search her face.

“To… _understand,_ Anne…” he gasped, determined not to lose the thread of her explanation amongst the bitterness and recriminations. “You promised you would… explain…”

She bent down to kneel by the bed, her face heated and her eyes dazzling. She put her free hand over his as it was over hers; hand upon hand upon hand, like the children’s game.

“He didn’t belong in my life,” she offered simply, with a look to him that was full of meaning he didn’t trust himself to interpret. “And I _know _I didn’t belong in _his_.”

“Well, that’ll do it,” he gave a twisted smile, and her lips curved upwards at that, and she was _so near… so near… so near… _and his head was split in two and if he _did _pass out from his damned head and from the knowledge of having two years of grieving the loss of her only to have her _here now _and _not _engaged… well, it might almost be worth it.

“_Stay,” _he pleaded raggedly. “Stay, Anne.”

The mesmeric tears spilled over her cheeks, and he could hardly believe what he was seeing.

“Of _course,_ Gil…”

“Gilbert!” came another voice at the door, and they both turned, astonished, to the sound of it.

“Ma…” he offered on a groan that wasn’t _entirely _due to his splitting skull.

“Gilbert…?” she came in warily, eying the two of them in passionately chaste exchange, and he was grateful he had opened the door on them again. “What’s wrong, love?”

“It’s just a bad headache, Ma…” he tried to downplay the pain through gritted teeth.

He knew she would spring into action at that.

“You need some water love, and a powder. And _rest. _I feared this was too much excitement for you.”

The reproof to Anne was heard loud and clear, and he could already see her, expression becoming shuttered, moving away from him instantly with a guilty flush, impatiently brushing away her tears, limpid grey-green eyes wide and sorrowful.

“Ma, I have asked Anne to stay, and she has kindly agreed… to be here after I’ve rested and shaken this...”

“Well, thank you Anne, I am sure Gilbert appreciates that,” his mother said in a voice that fought to be neutral, but might be threaded with iron. “Though Miss Cuthbert may venture an opinion on the matter.”

Through his temporal pain he saw a lightning bolt; a flash of green again in those eyes he had known so well. And another welcome sight; that pointed chin, tilting ever so slightly upwards.

“I wouldn’t wish to trespass on your hospitality at this time, Mrs Blythe, or to go against Marilla’s wishes… Though she is supportive of any decision I make as an independent woman of twenty two… I only wish… to honour Gilbert’s request, if I may.”

He gulped the headache powder quickly whilst he could still stomach it, and had been coaxed by his mother’s hands to lie down during this speech, though now he had to cover his delighted, disbelieving grin with the edge of the blanket, though it hurt to even smile at this point. An extraordinary thought punctured his pitifully pained state; she was _fighting _for the _right_ to _be with him._

_She cared… She cared … She cared …_

She met his eyes in a shared long, longing look before his mother ushered her out.


	5. Contemplating

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

** **

Hovering in the doorway to his bedroom, portal to his private world, she glimpsed a man who used to be Gilbert.

_This _was not Gilbert. It _couldn’t _be. Not this pallid, painfully thin pretender; this wasted wreck; this emaciated interloper.

_It’s not him… it’s not him… it’s not him…_

God was obviously playing a cruel trick, or else _he _was; to leap out at her from around the corner at any moment, delighting in her shock and surprise; the boy of _Carrots _who _torments our lives out_ * reverting to long-ago form…

Anne felt herself staring too much in her shock… _questioning… quivering … quaking… _and tried her best to summon a smile. He offered his own, alongside a studied salutation, and she felt herself truly tumbling down _Alice’s _rabbit-hole … _falling… falling… falling… _and finding it impossible to orientate herself in time or space. She clutched her coat; she collapsed into the chair; she considered his beloved, beautiful face, the skin now stretched too tight; the color too waxy and pale; the smile sliding into grimace. Only his eyes held a hint of _him, _and she sought them desperately, even as she shied from the hurt and hopelessness within their depths.

Had _she _done that? Was _she _responsible for that look from him, the other side of Death, which he had fought so bravely, only to fall at the remembrance of her cruelty?

She shouldn’t be here; she knew that now. She had no right, and she was doing no good. Only… only… the exchange of an old joke and the sharing of a new smile, and…

_It was him… It was him… It was him…_

Her heart thundered with a new knowledge of what he meant to her, had always meant to her, only now properly, painfully understood, as she busied herself in the comforting mundanity of tea, hoping it would help circumvent the surreal nature of their circumstances. She tried not to dwell on the precious features she thought she might never see again, remade into the form of this heroic knight, so tested in battle; the escaped top button of his pyjamas freeing the stubbly terrain of his throat … his Adam’s apple bobbing distractingly… the way his long lashes swept shadows onto his poor, sunken cheeks… his dark curls cresting his brow… his still _splendid _chin or his noble nose or his perfectly formed lips or his –

“No ring?” he had asked her, and his bewildering nearness; the low-pitched growl of his question, had caused her to panic. Evasive and tongue-tied, she tripped over his questions, not certain why if he was with Christine it even mattered if she was engaged to twenty men, and none of them would be his equal anyway. But he _would _badger her and she _would _flare, shamefully, in response, and she found herself leaning against the door, with his desperate, devastating look to her… and if he asked her to _help him understand, _well, then, the answer was likewise as baffling and as bewildering to her.

_I love you… _might have been all the answer he required, once. Long ago, when he had grasped her hand and declared his own feelings, which she had denied and trampled and ground into the dust. _Your friendship can’t satisfy me… _** were his words _then _which hovered now in the hum of history between them, even as she had nothing left but to ask for his own favour of friendship, unworthy of it as she was.

To see him gripped by that sudden, searing pain, though, tore at something fundamental within her; she felt it as if it was her own, a _cord of communion _*** akin, she supposed, to that between a mother and a child, or… as one soul to its mate. She knew in that moment she would do anything for him, even to leave…

… but incredibly, inconceivably… he had asked her to stay.

* * *

Downstairs in the small, nicely appointed parlour, Marilla broke off her sensible small-talk with John Blythe, searching with loving concern over Anne’s white, pinched face.

“How does Gilbert today?” she asked carefully, her tone noting the awkwardness with which Anne conducted herself, and the darting looks she gave Ella Blythe.

“He has another very bad headache,” Ella announced to the room, her frown seeming etched into her tired features, causing a sagging motion southwards that was as fearsome as it was unbecoming.

“Did he take a powder?” Mr Blythe asked, to which he received a curt nod. “Well, then, Dr Spencer will be here for his visit soon, and we can see what he says about the matter.”

“He will say rest and recuperation, John. A quiet household and a calm environment.”

John, clearly embarrassed, flicked a guilty glance at Marilla and then Anne, the meaning behind such sentiments clear. Anne felt her cheeks enflame at this admonishment, thinking with a heavy heart how once Mrs Blythe had welcomed her into her home with a generous smile and an encouraging air, and now could not wait to see her rid of it.

“Perhaps we should take our leave…” Marilla offered in conciliatory fashion, with a mindful smile to the couple who had been through so much. “Anne, love, what say you come back tomorrow, when everyone is fresh and rested?”

“I… I don’t wish to intrude. It’s just that Gilbert… asked me to stay. He specifically requested I be here when he starts to feel better.” Anne’s face showed two lingering bright blotches of discomfort at the admission. “I’d hate to disappoint him.” _Again._

“I’m sure it can’t hurt…” John offered encouragingly. “Particularly if it is _Gil’s_ wish.” The last sentence was directed at his wife, with whom he had several moments of silent communication before Ella bid them a tight-lipped thanks and farewell, begging off to sit with her son until the doctor’s arrival.

“If Anne’s of a mind to stay, and it’s Gil’s express wish, then we’d be very grateful,” John Blythe remarked to no one in particular. “I believe he’d be relieved to have the company, and it might give his mother some comfort to know he _can _be cared for in her absence…” he crossed his strong arms over his chest defensively. “It’s been rather a hard few weeks… on all of us.”

Marilla nodded in sympathy, giving him a watery smile.

“We hope to support you - all of you - any way we can, John. Though I must leave the final decision to Anne,” she offered, turning to her now with a question in her eyes. “Regretfully I need to get back to the twins, and so…”

“I’ll be fine, thank you, Marilla, as long as Mr and Mrs Blythe are easy in the knowledge that I might stay awhile…”

“Consider it done, Anne,” John gifted his son’s lovely Blythe smile. “We’ll make sure you have a proper spot of tea now yourself,” he turned then to Marilla, to include her in the promise, “and when your visit is finished I’ll personally see you home.”

“Thank you, John,” Marilla answered for the both of them.

Anne and Marilla walked out behind him and watched from the verandah as he strolled back towards the barn to fetch the horse and buggy.

“How bad was it, Marilla?” Anne blurted. “Upstairs just now? What were you able to overhear?”

Marilla Cuthbert’s smile was knowing, and she lifted a wry eyebrow. “Nothing distinct. Just raised voices in excitable exchange. I would say… the same as it ever was, between you and Gilbert,” she finished leadingly.

“Oh that it _would_ be…” Anne sighed, with a little of her old dramatic fervour.

“Anne, are you sure you’re right to stay? You mustn’t feel obligated, love.”

“I am, and I _do. _But it’s not the sort of obligation you’re suggesting, Marilla. It’s not… _that. _It’s… it’s all those weeks when I wasn’t with him, and could do nothing for him… I’ll do all that I can _now, _as his friend, if he’ll have me, and if Mrs Blythe will tolerate me… it’s a very small service, but I mean to do it, all the same.”

“I’m sure Gilbert would not think it small.’’

Anne lifted her narrow shoulders. “Perhaps not… To see him well again would be worth it, Marilla. I can’t tell you… the change in him…” she shuddered, and more tears threatened. “Even if it’s only to get him well for Christine Stuart,” she ended on a gulp.

“Anne, I don’t understand this supposed attachment to that girl.”

“He didn’t deny it, Marilla… although we were sidetracked by talk of… Roy and... other things.”

“Well, Anne,” Marilla turned to her with a heartening smile, “Roy is in your past, and this Christine is not currently in _his_ present. _You _are.” There was a flash of humour to her look as she patted her cheek affectionately and then she moved, laden with their runaway baskets, to have John Blythe hand her up to the buggy, with the gentlemanly care she fondly remembered from decades before.

John Blythe turned to Anne as they waved Marilla off. “Well, now, I think I’ve left a _few_ plum puffs for you, Anne. What say we have them outside here on this fine morning?”

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

John Blythe had always had a manner and a presence reminding her somewhat of Matthew; a gentle nature and a cordial reserve; a steady hand through a crisis; and an enormous capacity for hard, honest work. But whereas Matthew had been shy and retiring, John Blythe was knowing and quietly witty, with an impish humour his son had most definitely inherited. Anne drew comfort from the companionable silence between them seated in the chairs on the sun-filled verandah, even as her thoughts strayed to the man resting upstairs in his boyhood abode, wondering what she would possibly say to him in the aftermath of their stormy interlude.

Mr Blythe had for a few minutes considered his beverage with a frowning deliberation, but now he put down his cup firmly, and clasped his large, brown, long fingered hands – Gilbert’s hands – together.

“You mustn’t mind Mrs Blythe, Anne…” he began after a time, gaze lighting on her before seeking some indeterminate point in the middle distance. “The last weeks have put quite the strain on her. She doesn’t mean to be hard on you.”

Anne may have expected many conversational openings, but never _this _one.

“Mr Blythe, I never would think… that is, I am sure that I… that I am not deserving of any… spared feelings or, ah, special treatment,” she admitted, miserable to have uttered the sentiments aloud.

He looked to her sharply, eyes softening in contemplation. “That seems like an awful lot of guilt for such a little body to be carrying around, Anne.”

She blushed furiously at this.

“And _misplaced,_ too,” he added.

“You are… t-too kind, Mr Blythe. I wish that is _was_. But I made many mistakes, concerning Gil… I… looking back, I did not treat him… as well as I ought. I _do _feel guilt about my actions and behaviour, and I _do _regret them…” Anne dashed at her tears, reaching in desperation for her tea.

“Well, now, we all have regrets regarding Gil…” John Blythe offered carefully.

Anne’s wide, grey eyes were agog at this.

“We knew he was… _low_… halfway through his course…” John alluded, studiously avoiding her gaze. “We left him to his feelings, rather than support him through it. He wasn’t a boy any longer, after all, as he continually reminded us…” his lips quirked at the memory. “So we let him work through it on his own, and to work through his summers, hardly having a break. I was proud of his independence, but I should have done more to help him. Could have sold something more off at this end, eased the burden for him…”

Anne bit her lip, not trusting herself to reply. It was not a secret that several acres of the Blythe farm had been sacrificed to help finance Gilbert’s studies.

“By final year he was almost obsessed with that scholarship… but we let it go on too long, and get too much… We should have gone to see him, should have asked him to ease off…”

“Mr Blythe!” she leapt in defence. “You couldn’t have possibly known! None of us knew quite how… how _hard _he was working…” _Or had cared to know… _she thought to herself now in mortification, remembering how she had barely seen him since the winter, all-too happy and relieved to be caught up in her own social whirl.

“Well, we have the result of it, of course_. And_ the cost,” the older man added, quietly.

Anne bit down on her lip, agonised.

“So Mrs Blythe…” her husband sighed, reconnecting to his original train of thought. “We didn’t know if Gilbert would live or die, of course. She bore the brunt of it, too… of his care and such. The trained nurse helped some, but even that poor woman couldn’t work round the clock. And then the last night…‘fore his fever broke, the night of the storm… it was as if Mother Nature herself was fighting the good Lord for his soul… It’s not a night I want to live through ever again, and that’s for certain…” he turned to contemplate her carefully. “And by the look of you the next morning, Anne, I’d have thought _you _wouldn’t want to live through it again, either.”

Her cheeks burned betrayingly.

“I should have been here, Mr Blythe,” Anne was beyond composure now, and had given up stifling her tears, until her companion offered his hankerchief with an affectionate look. “I should have been here, with you both…” _With him._

“You _were, _Anne,” he declared, letting the sentence hang in the air, announcing itself. Mr Blythe put a hand to his face, rubbing it tiredly. “He called for you, in his fever. _Often. _I wouldn’t … _infringe_ upon his privacy, only I thought it might help you to know, and I believe that… it goes some way towards explaining, er, his mother’s actions now. Rightly or wrongly, in her mind, you are wrapped up in the pain and the fear of those final days and nights… I am sure her demeanour will lighten as Gilbert improves…” They both looked up to the buggy approaching, heralding the arrival of the doctor.

“Will you be with us now, Anne, and wait it out till that time comes? Till they are _both _recovered?”

_He’d called for her… he’d called for her… he’d called for her… _

Anne could do nothing but nod resolutely, the ability to form actual words quite beyond her, earning from him a generous smile.

“Well, that’s all for the good then,” he nodded himself, giving her shuddering shoulder a squeeze of solidarity. “And I’d expect nothing less of Marilla’s girl.”

* * *

** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

Gilbert awoke to a cleared head and a calmed soul, and to a world bathed in the light of a new awareness; he was here, and so was Anne, and neither had other claims upon them.

He had woken to a world – _his _world - that Anne _wanted _to be part of.

He had to take a moment to fully appreciate this extraordinary reversal of fortune; Anne was _not _engaged. She did _not _love Roy. Those facts alone seemed as incredible as him having defeated typhoid. He had never loved a little word so much… _not… not… not… _Oh, the hopeful disbelief – the disbelieving hope! – of that negative flipped to positive; of despair turned upside down.

Along with _not _had been other little, worthy words, equally charged and important; _sorry… friend._

He had waited so long to hear _those _words, too, and the overturning of all the old, sad certainties that heralded them. If she wanted to be his friend then she did not consider him her foe. If she was sorry she had hurt him then she had realised that he mattered to her.

He had waited the better part of a decade for these realisations to come to her, if they ever would, and had almost lost heart. He remembered only too well his thoughts before they had left for Redmond, four years earlier; _I wonder if I can ever make her care for me. _**** By that stage years of careful, circumspect treatment of her; the boy-comrade mantle she best liked and that he had so leaned on, was beginning to chafe; a hair shirt of denial and discipline he longed to tear off.

Oh, yes, in desperation and pent-up desire he had certainly torn if off, and how. He had ripped it from his body and in doing so had ripped the fabric of their friendship asunder. And both of them left mourning the beauty of what had been rent; carrying around the ragged scraps of what remained, unsure how to ever properly stitch them back together.

Anne had called his proposal an _ambush, _and himself a steam train bearing down on her, unable to be stopped. Oh, that had _hurt. _His first reaction was how hellishly unfair that was… until he began to see… how it might be true. Nothing, he remembered with a pang, was going to stop him declaring himself to her… not even the lady in question.

Gilbert sighed, pausing in his redressing, determined to meet Anne again, if she was still even here, with some decent clothes on, at the very least. He’d managed trousers and shirt and suspenders but thought shoes today might be beyond him. Still, he felt more himself than he had in a long, long time. Since, perhaps, that dreadful day, seated with Anne in the orchard, clasping her hand in his too tightly…

_"Oh, don't say it… Don't -- PLEASE, Gilbert."_

_"I -- I can't… Oh, Gilbert -- you -- you've spoiled everything."_

_"Not -- not in that way. I do care a great deal for you as a friend. But I don't love you, Gilbert."_

_"No, I can’t… I never, never can love you -- in that way -- Gilbert. You must never speak of this to me again."_

_"No – no… I don't care for any one like THAT -- and I LIKE you better than anybody else in the world, Gilbert. And we must -- we must go on being friends, Gilbert." _**

He clenched his teeth and turned away, as if to rid himself of the memory of her words, which was a little difficult considering they had long ago been scratched onto his heart and seared into his brain. But he made himself hear them differently today. And all he heard was _don’t _and_ can’t _and_ no. _And… _please. _

Oh, God, it _had _been an ambush. All he heard now was her wish not to hear his thoughts, and how he had foisted them upon her anyway. The knowledge of his conduct heated his cheeks in shame and regret.

_Friends. _It was all she had wanted … and if it hadn’t been enough for him, if that alone couldn’t _satisfy _him, that hadn’t been her fault.

But he could be friends with her _now._

His eyes lit on the apple tree cutting, standing sentinel; surviving even when the roses had to be replaced. He lifted it out of its little vase and inhaled the faint, woodsy scent; brushed his nose over the new blossom; held it before his eyes, and wondered.

He’d heard, later, how Anne had arrived that morning after his fever, after the storm, looking like something emerged from the woods herself. How in his most desperate moment she had gone to their tree and had brought some of it back for him. As hope? As reminder? As talisman? As gift?

As _message?_

He twirled it gently in his fingers, smiling softly to himself, contemplating.

_I refused him… I didn’t love him… Ergo, I couldn’t marry him!_

_Sorry, Roy,_ he thought. _It’s not like I haven’t been there myself… but that was_ _just about the best thing I have ever heard in my life._

A knock at his door made him replace the sprig hurriedly, brushing aside some of his stockpiled correspondence; something new evidently arrived that morning, from the university, perhaps checking the most recent recipient of the Cooper Prize had not inconvenienced them by dying; and another Kingsport missive, from the pen of the newlywed Mrs Philippa Blake.

“Gilbert, love!” his mother now entered, now doubt astonished to see him up, let alone actually dressed. “I’m sorry, I only left you for ten minutes or so, once you were sleeping again…” she faltered, eyes wide on his as he approached her slowly.

“Ma, please don’t worry. The headache’s passed and I’m feeling _much _better.” He smiled down on her, perhaps properly for the first time since his illness, hands on her shoulders, and then gave her a grateful kiss on her cheek.

“Well, love, that’s wonderful, but you mustn’t overdo it… and at any rate, the doctor’s arrived.” Ella Blythe evidently didn’t know whether to be pleased or overwhelmed, joyous or cautious, and so her demeanour was an unhappy mix of all.

“That’s great. I might go downstairs to meet him.” _And someone else._

“_Downstairs, _love?” his mother queried worriedly. “Do you really think…?”

He enveloped her in a hug; all elbows and angles, such as the youth who greeted her back from Alberta all those years ago, with not yet enough flesh to hold up his fast-growing bones.

“Baby steps, Ma, I promise!” he chuckled, with some of his old, light boyishness, knowing the vow wasn’t just for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Anne of Green Gables (Ch 15)  
**Anne of the Island (Ch 20)   
***Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre (Ch 23)  
****Anne of the Island (Ch 2)


	6. Believing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With very best belated Christmas wishes... or whichever holiday you celebrate x
> 
> Thank you to all my readers here.
> 
> In gratitude I give you an entire Gilbert chapter! Which is always one of my favourite things ;)
> 
> Love  
MrsVonTrapp x

* * *

**_Gilbert_ **

* * *

** **

In years gone by he had bounded with boyish enthusiasm down the stairs to greet her, flushed and eager, as they met to study their courses or work out the agenda for the next AVIS meeting. They would sit at the dining room table, an indulgence his mother only permitted when he was in Anne’s company, with books and papers peppering the shined surface, and put the world to rights over Shakespeare and paint colors.

He now took the stairs carefully, his tread as measured as an old man’s, though his heart swelled with _old blossoming hopes _* that were as young and youthful as ever; and as stubbornly resilient as the new buds on the apple tree cutting upstairs.

He hadn’t quite believed Anne would wait for him until he saw her, standing as unobtrusively as she could manage with her flaming hair, watching his progress towards them with shining eyes, and when he met her look he nearly took an extra step inadvertently, which would have had him falling quite literally at her feet.

He corrected himself and was a picture of studied calm as he accepted his father’s greeting and offered his own to Dr Spencer. There was a little guest room downstairs, recently vacated by the nurse, and this is to where they adjourned for his examination, Gilbert showering the doctor with questions about his limited capabilities and how best to address his recovery.

“There doesn’t seem to be any complications, as you said,” Gilbert mentioned, in eager self-diagnosis. “No internal bleeding, no blood in stools, no heart or chest pain, only a little shortness of breath, but lungs seem to be clear…”

“They are,” Dr Spencer gave bemused confirmation, having just listened to both chest and back with his stethoscope to give credence to this assertion.

“And no residual inflammation of the pancreas or gall bladder…” Gilbert added helpfully, as Dr Spencer’s fingers prodded his stomach and sides, once distended, now shrunk to post-illness normality.

“Mmm…” the good doctor smiled, and then checked Gilbert’s glands. “Headaches?” he asked, pointedly.

“Yes,” Gilbert answered reluctantly. “A few.”

“Severe?”

“Occasionally…”

“_Hydration,” _Dr Spencer offered sternly.

“Yes, Doctor…”

“It’s most important, Gilbert. Rest, too. And no over-excitement.”

“Have you been speaking to my mother?” he answered somewhat mulishly, to which Dr Spencer gave a great guffaw.

“Didn’t need to. I saw your _guest._”

This made Gilbert redden shamefully, and he thought best to divert the conversation.

“Will I be ready… for medical school?” he asked quietly, the lingering doubts darkening his mood and his tone.

“I can’t see why not,” Dr Spencer clapped him gently on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t be hit with any clinical visits first up, so that will assist you, though sleep and good nutrition will be essential. If I have any reservations I’ll write a letter to the Dean closer to the time, asking for a little leeway to support you in returning to the grind. And it _is _a grind, Gilbert, and no mistake. You must learn to pace yourself properly, and not burn the candle at both ends.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I will.”

“Rest and regeneration, Gilbert. I know how eager you must be to get back to your life. But you’ve been through an ordeal, and you must be mindful. The headaches will pass, and I’ll leave some more powders, but use them sparingly, or even at half measure. Good food and rest and _fluids _and gentle exercise. Fresh air. Don’t hit the books for a while. Get a little sun on your face. Have a pleasant conversation with a pretty lady.” The last was added with all but a smirk, and those sharp eyes glimmered beneath bushy grey brows.

“Ah, about that…” Gilbert’s cheeks flamed, and he didn’t even know quite what he was asking, or even _why_. “It’s… _safe_… to be with her? To be in, ah, _close _proximity?”

That old, knowing smile had turned gentle at his discomfort, well used to the meandering questions of mumbling teenage boys or embarrassed swains or even the occasional young groom before the wedding night, wanting to ensure everything was in proper working order.

“I’d probably leave it a week or so before any mouth-to-mouth greetings,” the older man announced with admirable blandness, and choose to ignore Gilbert’s sudden coughing fit in reply.

“I’ll call again in three days, Gilbert,” Dr Spencer now grinned unrepentantly. “Send word if there is any need to see you earlier. Otherwise, try to enjoy a little of the summer. Goodness knows you’ve earned it.”

Gilbert shook hands warmly. “Thanks, Sir. For everything.”

“Well, it might be _my _thanks I’m giving to _you_. You’re a bit of a miracle, young Blythe, and it’s heartening to know they still exist. You’ve got to hold on to the good luck stories. Use them to help temper the bad. You’ll learn it yourself, in time. Medicine is as much about faith and belief as science. Never forget the difference they can make.”

_Belief… belief… belief…_

He realised he hadn’t _believed _in anything for a long time. Dare he try to now?

* * *

The sun on his face did indeed feel fabulous, through the restorative measures of a good cup of tea, a sliver of toast and a plum puff were such that he would never take them for granted again. Nor the presence of Anne next to him on the verandah, allowing him the opportunity, lost to him for so long, to _meditate on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow. _**

He had seen his mother off, with some amazement on his part and reluctance on hers, to pay Mrs Harmon Andrews an overdue call, urged by both his father and Dr Spencer that the break would do her the world of good, and that her son would have both Anne on hand and his own father in the lower field if any problem should arise. The good doctor had waited until Mrs Blythe was ready, offering to drop her himself, and Gilbert did not miss the grateful exchange that took place in the smile and nod that his father gave the venerable man before handing his wife up to the buggy.

John Blythe had then seen he and Anne settled, giving a fond look to both before he took off, whistling, for the relief of the outdoors.

And Gilbert found that he and Anne were finally alone.

He had missed the slow approach to summer, and had landed amongst a world burst to full bloom, with his senses alive to the fragrant air and the drone of nearby insects and the radiance of the light… he had been dwelling in a cave and was now thrust out of hibernation, awed and amazed, blinking in bedazzlement.

“Gilbert…” Anne began, low voiced and halting. “I am so sorry about my… conduct, before. You were too sick for such an exchange and - “

“Anne,” he turned to her, pleased to hear the new strength in his voice. “You mustn’t blame yourself for my reaction to anything you said upstairs. You needed to say some things to me, and I needed to hear them, and likewise I trust you understood what I was saying, too. It wasn’t easy… on either of us. But we’ve both said our piece now. I don’t want to have us going over old ground till we fall down, exhausted. _Especially _now.”

“No…” she murmured, eyes downcast. “Nor I.”

He watched those slim, pale fingers trace a worried path along the arm of the chair, before grasping her other hand, her fingers kneading one another in an agitation he didn’t know if he’d ever quite noted in her before.

“So I suggest…” here he searched for the words, grinning over the bad metaphor that came too readily. “A clean slate, between us.”

Her head came up at this, and he could have wagered on the play of emotions he now saw across her lovely, expressive face, ending with a chagrined quirk of her shell-pink lips. “A _clean slate_,” she echoed dryly, her eyes brightening.

“Yes. _Slate_. I remember you are familiar with them.”

He thought she might have rolled her eyes at this, except she was trying very hard to be on best behaviour, and instead she bit her lower lip mightily, composing herself and her reaction. “Are you suggesting that we… that the past…?”

“Let’s start again, Miss Shirley. You asked if we might be friends, and I recall us being excellent friends, once. It’s as good a place to begin again as any, don’t you think?”

“Oh, Gilbert…” her voice wavered dangerously, before capitulating on a breath that became trapped between a sob and a sigh. “I would love that!”

“Well then, we must shake on it. Though I will save you the unpleasantness of our schoolboy vows, which was to spit into our palms and _then _shake.”

“Are you determined to undermine this moment for me?” she decried, though her lips unsuccessfully fought their drift upwards.

“Indeed not. Shake on our friendship, then, Miss Shirley.”

There had been many times he had taken her lily white hand, but none that might replace the dread memory of the desperate grasp of his large brown hand taking hers in the Patty’s Place orchard, unwilling to let go and holding on much too tightly, as if knowing before he had even begun that she was there under duress. Now he extended his and she met it; offer and acceptance, and the old bolt of electricity passed through him again at her touch. But there was something _more_, today… her smile was wide and her eyes almost emerald in the strong summer sun, and the brilliance of her joyful reaction was startling, and he would have staggered backwards at it if he hadn’t been seated in the first place.

_Yes, being just friends with her was going to be as difficult as it had ever been, _he sighed to himself, but then remembered how this morning she had been still engaged to Roy, as far as he had known, and lost to him forever, friend or otherwise.

“So tell me all the gossip now, my friend Miss Anne, for I have been rather starved of it these few weeks. You said you were with the Irvings at the start of the summer?”

This was all the encouragement required for her to launch into a fond and detailed description of the weeks at Echo Lodge and of the happiness and new maturity of its occupants, particularly Charlotta the Fourth, now _a very grown-up young lady, _and Paul, now of a manly haircut and of interests that leaned more towards _football than fairies, _*** though his kindred-spiritness with Anne remained.

“Young Irving cut his curls, did he?” Gilbert found himself rifling through his own, mock-frowning. “I might have to follow suit, if anyone is going to treat me seriously at all at medical school.”

“Don’t you _dare, _Gilbert Blythe!” Anne almost launched herself at him with a girlish squeal. “Or you’ll have me and your mother both, hog-tying you to this chair till September!”

Her amazing, affronted reaction had him chuckling merrily. “Well, what am I meant to do with this wild thatch then, Miss Shirley, when I’m not yet well enough for the barber and my mother doesn’t quite trust herself with the job?”

“_I’ll _cut it, then,” her voice caught on his laughing gaze, and her grey-green eyes strayed to the follicles in question. “I always do Davy’s and trim Dora’s, and even did Matthew’s for a time. I trust you can sit still at _least_ as well as Davy.” Her eyes drifted back down to his, and the tease in them made his tired, beleaguered heart beat queerly, but even more extraordinary was the flush that came to Anne’s cheeks at his own perusal, which was a startling new development.

“I might have to hold you to that,” he offered, voice pitched so low it might have emerged from his belly.

“Yes, do,” Anne answered, throatily.

They moved on to the weddings he had also missed – Jane and Phil’s respectively – and he listened to Anne’s generous assessment of Jane’s _kind and good-hearted _millionaire as he _carried her off in a blaze of splendour _and then her gushing tribute to Philippa’s _dainty fairy of a bride _and Jo’s matching _radiant happiness._ **** Gilbert searched Anne’s face for any misgivings regarding her own now marriage-less state and found none, and was undecided if this was reassuring or not.

Anne’s face softened by several degrees when in contemplation of the new parents, however, and of Diana’s loveliness as a new mother, which she was of the opinion had utterly transformed her.

“Well, Fred is as pleased as punch, I saw that,” Gilbert added with a smile. “Naturally I won’t be able to visit them for a while, so you’ll have to give me your assessment on whom Fred Jr takes after.”

“I found him… very much like his father,” Anne concluded after several beats.

“Oh no! That’s not much of a recommendation!” Gilbert smirked.

“Gilbert!”

“By his _own _admission Fred is hoping the Barry side will come to the fore,” he added unrepentantly, grinning wider.

“Well… he _could _take after Diana around the mouth…” Anne offered in uneasy diplomacy, which only made her companion laugh delightedly to himself.

“It’s alright for you, Mr Blythe!” Anne now chuckled alongside him. “_You _will be assured of your children’s beauty, unlike the rest of us!”

“_My _children?” his sudden strangled clarification stopped them both in their tracks. Anne slowly came to sense exactly what she had said in her off-the-cuff remark, eyes widening in aghast fashion, coloring profusely.

Gilbert felt his heart measure the seconds, as he looked at Anne and Anne looked at him. Of course, in younger days they had often talked of the concept of children whilst still being children themselves; a trading tease to imagine which annoying traits their own respective progeny would be shackled with. _His _curls; _her _hue… _his _teasing; _her _temper… but of course, in his own mind, the concept of children had always come with a definite pronoun… not his, not hers, but _theirs._

The Anne of times past would have laughed off her gaffe and moved on, or said something to smilingly undercut the unexpected compliment to him, but _this _Anne before him was baffling woman and not mercurial girl, and she now excused herself with flustered thoughts of letting him rest and getting on home, and quickly rose to take in the tea tray back to the kitchen.

Gilbert sat, trying to puzzle out this change in her. It was true, they were not children now… they had friends married and with children themselves, and the prospect of it carried as if on the air for all the others… the Blakes and Mr and Mrs Inglis and all the myriad couples they were yet to hear about. Did Anne in that moment not regret Roy, but what he could have given her? Her own dark haired, dark eyed, melancholy child with poetry in his soul, as in hers?

His own hazel eyes drew back to her face as Anne re-emerged, and he wanted to question her in this but his questions were not those of a mere friend, and had no place in the careful new ground they were forging. Moments ago he had wanted to till the soil with the seeds of his new hope regarding her, but now he sat back in frustration, annoyed with himself for wanting more still when he had regained so much already.

His father would round the bend any minute, and so too his mother would return, and yet he could find no appropriate words for her in the measure of time left to them to encompass this momentous day. The sun shone in cheerful affront as he frowned, and Anne’s thoughts immediately returned to the worst.

“Gilbert? Are you feeling unwell again?”

“No, Anne,” he managed a smile. “Only contemplating the quiet here once you leave.”

Her auburn brows drew together in response, and she strove for a lightness in the air between them again.

“I would have thought a little quiet for you would be a relief!”

“I’ve had too _much_ quiet, Anne. I may have not always coped with the _noise_ of today and all it has represented, but at least it made me feel _alive _again.”

It was an unfair observation to land at her feet, this dread fear of his that the silence of the night would return to swallow him.

“Are you afraid to be alone, now?” she asked tremulously.

He felt his body tighten around his response, wanting to protect her from his answer; to give her the denial that would be easier, and not have to be explained.

“Yes…” he breathed instead, his chest hurting as if the admission had fought through bone and sinew to escape from him.

“I was, too…” she whispered. “I was afraid to be in a world where you were not, Gil.”

He turned his eyes to hers, and everything he had previously known vanished on the summer breeze, as ether. There did not exist anything but the stone in his throat, refusing to budge; or the pained pulsating of his heart; or the breath lodged heavy and tight in his chest. There was nothing but him staring at Anne, and hearing her words, and truly believing …

_…She cared… she cared… she cared…_

He could not reflect accurately on the timeline of events after that, except Anne collapsed, suddenly, into a sob, and he had his arms around her, and her own arms were clinging to his neck, and her tears were hot and salty against his shirt, and her heaving breaths shuddered against him, and she repeated _I nearly lost you… I nearly lost you… I nearly lost you… _as an inconsolable incantation; a stunning, stupefying spell.

He drew back from her, not sure if the moment actually existed in anything but his mind… except the feel of her was so real, and he wouldn’t ever dare to imagine the look she gave him, as he brought his long fingers to her tears, seized by both wretchedness to see her cry and wonder that it was over _him._

He fumbled, belatedly, for his hankerchief, but Anne gave a sad little laugh and extracted something from the pocket of her skirt, waving it as a white flag.

“Your _father’s,” _she explained, and he saw with consternation that it was already damp as she mopped her new tears.

“You’ve been practising?” he joked, badly, but the hazel eyes trained on her were shadowed by his concern.

“It might be the only thing I’m good for, lately,” she shrugged, rolling her eyes.

“Well, Anne-girl, don’t forget the plum puffs,” he smiled down at her, reaching for her hand and squeezing it reassuringly.

She gave a chagrined smile, her eyes enormous on his, and he didn’t trust himself to speak further.

He tore his eyes away from hers at his father’s approaching whistle, and released her hand, like a bashful schoolboy, before John Blythe might notice it. But Ella Blythe, coming on foot from the other direction from where young Ralph Andrews had dropped her, certainly _did _notice it, and noticed how her son had embraced Anne Shirley, and how he stared and stared at her now, as he had once never dared to do, and how Anne Shirley blushed under his gaze, as she had never before cared to.

“I’ll come tomorrow, Gil,” Anne murmured to him as they were surrounded by his parents suddenly on all sides. “With _scissors_,” she added, with a careful smile.

“A threat or a promise, Miss Shirley?” his eyes drank hers.

“It depends how well behaved you are,” she replied, recovering her composure, her arch smile fading quickly. “And you are _not_ alone, Gil… we are all here with you,” she whispered up to him, her eyes flashing with fervour.

“I believe it…” he gulped, as much for himself as for her.

* * *

Much later, as the sunset faded slowly against the horizon, Gilbert stood at his bedroom window, a letter in his hand. And here he was, thinking that this day could not be any _more _extraordinary…

_Patterson Street_

_Kingsport, Nova Scotia_

_Dearest Gilbert,_

_The last thing I wanted to do in my first letter to you as a respectable married woman – and a minister’s wife no less! – was to begin this with an admonishment, but I feel I cannot help myself. Quite simply, you have caused dear Jo and I the worst twenty four hours of worry in our young and in my case, carefree lives, and we would most likely never forgive you, except we are both so overly fond of you. _

_There – I have that off my chest, and now will go about explaining myself, clearly if not always rationally, with your patient, bemused smile in my mind’s eye._

_We were not installed here in Patterson Street three days after our honeymoon tour through the land of Evangeline_ ****_ before I had to turn my thoughts to the mountainous pile of correspondence relating to thank yous and belated letters of congratulations for the wedding – and let me tell you, with all Mother’s guests and joint relations, that pile looks like the highest peak of the Pyrenees - and quickly sorting the pile I happened upon a pretty little note waiting for me from Mrs Diana Wright. I don’t see why all the friends of you and Anne should not also become my own, since I had already collected Pris and Stella on my travels, though you can keep Charlie Sloane it has to be said. At any rate having heard from Anne herself that she had been safely delivered of young Fred Jr, I had written Diana, whom I have heard so much about, with congratulations for Anne to pass on, alongside some of Mother’s knitted bootees. She had then written back, as ladies are wont to do, with congratulations to Jo and I, on the occasion of our most glorious wedding. But then – oh Gil! – she had added a terrible postscript, in which she had learned you had become dangerously unwell, struck down with typhoid, and we could scarcely believe it. _

_Well, you can imagine at that stage I rushed into Jo, and then together we went through our mountainous pile, but found nothing new from Anne or anyone else, as to properly explain this news, and had begun to go a bit demented. I was reduced to having Jo compose telegrams of enquiry to Anne and Diana both (as I was hardly capable – what a rock he is!) and he was on the cusp of leaving for the post office when the afternoon post carried a letter from Anne. Well, you can imagine I grasped for it as for a life preserver, and had to have Jo read it back aloud I was so incapable of making it out. She had sent it two days ago, and let me tell you, it contained the most barely comprehensible ramblings about storms and vigils and guilt and bargains with Our Father himself as to make us think _she_ had been the one in a delirium, but the upshot was that apparently you had nearly died but had been miraculously spared, and upon hearing this I nearly made some agreements with Him myself, along the lines of never complaining about anything ever again._

_Oh, Gilbert! Honey, we are both so very sorry for this terrible recent turn of events. I daresay Jo will be writing his own letter to you in this regard, for we have both been very shaken by it all, having only been saying to ourselves how nice it will be to have at least one of our Redmond friends still with us in Kingsport after the summer, and the clever Cooper Prize winner at that, not knowing all the struggles you have faced whilst I have been traipsing with Jo around Nova Scotia and changing my mind three times about the new curtains for the parlour. Infact, I am only able to have this missive to you make any sense at all because Jo insisted I sleep on my reply, and now I have only just this morning received a very apologetic follow up from Diana, in which she assures me in very reasonable, grateful tones that you are indeed on the mend, and her Fred himself had seen you with his own eyes, and that there is the hope you may even eventually be well enough to start your medical studies as intended._

_Gil, I am going to say the next part now before I lose my nerve or before Jo convinces me I am not to meddle in your love life, being as you almost died and have been through quite enough already, except for an honest desire to help and to lay some of my own regrets at your door._

_Firstly, I don’t know if you have even heard this yourself, being occupied with more elemental matters of late, but Anne is NOT engaged to Roy Gardner. I saw her come in after his proposal myself, the night after the Convocation dance, fully expecting to fling my flurries of congratulations at her, only to have her remark that she had refused him, that she did not love him, and that she didn’t believe he belonged in her life._

_Well, you can imagine my astonishment. I certainly understood it to be a foregone conclusion – all of Redmond did, I have no need to remind you – and I felt most sorry for Roy, who had fulfilled all his obligations perfectly. And there’s the rub, and it’s what I believe Anne saw, belatedly, for herself – that sometimes the girlhood ideal is actually not what you want or need at all. Or, more accurately, that your ideal changes. I had Alec and Alonzo waiting on me for years, and it only took me ten seconds after meeting Jo to realise how wrong I had been in everything. I could have gone along marrying either of them not knowing that, till it happened to me. And so it happened to Anne, too. _

_So I need to emphasise, Gilbert, that there IS no Roy any longer. Anne had been presented with her dark eyed ideal, as she remarked to me, and had thrown him off. So what will you make of THAT? We also hear of Roy squiring about some young lady in his circle already, so I don’t think his heart was broken. But forgive me, Gil, my presumptuousness, but I think YOURS was._

_You see, I was there with Anne after you had proposed to her, too, oh years ago now, and you may have been well pleased with me for how I railed at her learning that she had refused you. For no one ever loved her or knew her as well as you did, not even Roy, and we all saw it. I don’t think she fully appreciated what she had in you until she had lost it, for things were never the same again, were they? Really, how can they be? Anne might have wished to go on being friends and I know you tried valiantly for a time, and I even tried to chat with you when you visited to help you along, but it wasn’t the same. And frankly, Anne wasn’t the same, I see that now. But there is a real stubbornness in you both, and so when she met Roy there just happened to be Christine and everyone had moved on gamely, or so it appeared._

_Well, goodness, Gilbert, knock me down with a feather when I found out that the rumours of your anticipated engagement to Christine Stuart – that I myself had helped along, quite innocently and now regretfully – were not only false, but that the girl can hardly accept YOU when she’s already taken! Gilbert, what on earth were you thinking, to have everyone believe you were involved with her? Well, of course, shamefully, I know what you were thinking, for I once thought the same about Alec and Alonzo – that it is better to have someone on your arm than no one at all. So with Christine on your arm you could better face up to Anne and Roy. And that’s fine, I understand, except Anne might have realised she actually loved YOU much sooner if she hadn’t been so busy trying to convince everyone – including herself – that she was so happy as she was._

_Yes, I hope you’ve sat up in your sickbed to take notice of THAT, Gilbert Blythe – I think ANNE LOVES YOU. I think she perhaps always has, but didn’t recognise it for what it was, because it never looked like she imagined it would. Did she ever tell you her thoughts about seeing a diamond for the first time when she was a girl? She thought a diamond should look like an amethyst, the silly thing, all purple and lovely and glimmering, and was so disappointed at the difference between imagination and reality that she cried! Well, Gilbert, I was never much good with metaphors and gilded prose – I always left that to Anne herself - but you didn’t look like what a diamond should be, to her. And now she’s grown a little and understands herself better and can recognise things - and people - for what they are. And so, she loves you, just as you are. I’m convinced of this. That mad letter of hers where she thought she might have lost you helped convince me of this. And even if I’m wrong and she doesn’t quite, yet, then there is the greatest potential that she WILL. And if you still love her, as I believe you do, then you owe it to yourself to at least try. TRY AGAIN with her, Gilbert. Please. For both your sakes. She might hide behind the idea of just friends, or believe you are still involved with Christine, and she will be scared and unsure and self protective. You know her, even better than I. But you are two of my favourite people in the world, and nothing prepared me so much for loving Jo as seeing you and Anne together in the early days, and to see what a couple who truly belonged together really looked like._

_I must end this and get it off for you, before I naturally change my mind about it._

_Jo and I send all our love and prayers to you, Gil. Good luck. Get well. _

_Love,_

_Phil_

* * *

As the darkness filled the room, he would fall asleep with the letter tucked into his bedside table, and the apple tree cutting resting above it; twin talismans against all his old doubts.

He had faltered many times in his belief today of what he was hearing and seeing… and _feeling. _

But not now.

He had the memory of Anne in his arms; her tears wet against his collar; her admission made from her own lips… _I nearly lost you._

Two years ago he had rushed in as fools did, but experience had made him wary, and illness had made him wise.

Anne _didn’t _love Roy. But according to Phil’s words, she might love _him._

Anne might not quite believe it herself, yet… but he had the rest of the summer to learn her heart, and to gently, carefully, faithfully, show her his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Anne of the Island (Ch 37)  
**Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice (Ch 6)  
***Anne of the Island (Ch 40)  
****Anne of the Island (Ch 39)


	7. Blossoming

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

** **

“I _am _glad Gilbert didn’t die, of course,” Davy explained the following day at the kitchen table, shoving improbably large forkfuls of pie into his mouth between pronouncements, “but I can’t say I want him to get better too quickly though. Or else you’ll be off wandering Avonlea again with him, Anne, and we’ll be back to our ordinary breakfasts.”

“The cheek of you, young Master Keith!” Rachel admonished as Marilla, pouring tea, rolled her eyes to the heavens, casting a sideways look at Anne who had paused delicately before her own small forkful, face turning pink. “And at any rate,” Rachel continued with enthusiasm, “I hardly think Anne and Gilbert will be off _wandering Avonlea _as they used to. They are a woman and man, both. It wouldn’t be proper.”

“_Or _anticipated,” Marilla quickly rescued, “considering Gilbert Blythe is hardly out of his sickbed, and still has a long road ahead of him. So please be mindful of _that, _Davy, as you enjoy your own good health mucking out the barn after breakfast.”

“Aww, Marilla! I promised some of the boys I’d be off fishing today, now that you’re not worried about Anne no more…”

“The only fishing rod you’ll be seeing is the one paddling your behind!” Rachel interjected, whilst Anne leapt to cover other less fraught subjects, such as suggesting to Dora they go into town the next day to choose material for a new dress for her.

Davy finished his meal in affronted silence, wondering, not for the first time, what was so scandalous about repeating things he’d heard plain as day from Marilla’s or Mrs Rachel’s own lips, sighing as he walked out the back door towards the barn with the general air of one heading for the gallows. As Dora drifted quietly upstairs Anne was left with the kind but knowing looks of the older ladies, answering Rachel’s queries as to Gilbert’s welfare with as composed a countenance as she could muster.

“Well, I’m off to write some letters, then,” Rachel smiled, giving Anne’s arm a quick squeeze. “Don’t forget those preserves I’ve set aside for the Blythes, Anne; I’ll call myself in a day or two, when the dust settles. Please give Gilbert my very best.”

“Thank you, Rachel. Absolutely I will.”

Eventually, it was just Marilla and Anne with the breakfast dishes, washing and drying respectively with the easy air of long companionship, enjoying the unaccustomed quiet of the always busy house.

“So it was a good day in the end?” Marilla ventured carefully, draining the sink and wiping down the bench, though her eyes were trained on the redhaired woman – _girl_, sadly, no longer – as she did so, remembering the thoughtful look on her face as she had floated down from the Blythe’s buggy and into the house late the previous afternoon.

“Yes, Marilla…” Anne admitted wonderingly, giving a smile as if surprised by her own words. “Not the _easiest _day… perhaps it started as a _Jonah _day… but in the end… one of the very best, I think.”

Marilla gave shrewd smile at this. “So I take it Gilbert is pleased enough to have your company, despite your earlier misgivings?”

“Well, yes… that is, if you can spare me. I don’t want to neglect you or the twins or – “

“Anne, you must go where you are needed. And _Gilbert _needs you.”

Anne found herself grinning and blushing at this in equal measure. “Actually, what he _really _needs is a haircut! I was wondering if I could take the good dressmaking scissors with me today? If you won’t miss them.”

Marilla’s eyes were wide. “Anne, do you intend to tackle the infamous curly Blythe crown? We really don’t want to court any more disaster at present.”

“Oh, Marilla, don’t make me nervous now! I’ve promised Gilbert. His mother will probably be watching my every move!”

_I have a feeling she already is… _Marilla said to herself, watching her lovely girl, grown lovelier just in the last transformative day, as she bustled about with her basket, tucking the scissors in carefully and packing her pastries and preserves around them.

Anne set off jauntily down the well-worn path, towards the lane and Blythe farm, stopping to greet every wildflower on her route, her happy hum carried on the warm, soft breeze all the way to Marilla watching her fondly by the front door.

* * *

** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

Gilbert promised himself he would not look for her; in this he was aided by the distraction of another visit from Fred, coinciding with the dubious charms of Charlie who joined them, and as two of his oldest friends chatted and shared their news and plans all he could think of was the feel of Anne in his arms, and the way she had clung to him as if her own life depended on it, let alone his. _She loves you… _Phil Blake had determined, and it was so strange to have his heart turned towards hope and faith and not defeat and despair… he felt he was divesting himself of years of pained uncertainty as much as he was throwing off the last traces of his illness; belief and body born anew.

He farewelled the men and not ten minutes later saw Anne approach, and nearly fell over himself to greet her; unstable on long legs grown coltish through inaction; he felt a new awkwardness about his body, bruised and battered as it was, and had to remind himself of his father’s own words to him that morning, having noted the way Gilbert had forced himself up and out of bed and into the day with a decided lack of patience; _slow… steady… sure… _he was urged. It was perhaps his father’s favourite mantra around the farm and about life generally, applied to everything from recalcitrant livestock to zealous bank managers to, on occasion and with a knowing smile, his own wife.

Gilbert himself was not unused to the idea of patience; care and consideration were watchwords seared on his soul, particularly when it came to Anne. He longed to fling the circumspect aside and embrace the possibility and potential behind the luminous smile with which she greeted him, and the electric exchange of skin upon skin as their hands met when he relieved her of the burden of her basket, walking with her back towards the house.

“It’s lovely to see you properly up and about, Gil,” she offered.

“It’s lovely to _be _properly up and about,” he grinned. “And I hope you noticed _shoes _today, Miss Shirley, in your honour.”

“I did indeed,” she gave a tinkling laugh. “I was wondering what may have accounted for your extra inch or so. Though that _could _be the hair,” she darted a sly glance to him, smiling as a stray gust of wind, in unfair accord with such teasing, danced his too-long curls about frenetically, obscuring his vision.

“Well, I hope you came prepared on _that_ score, Anne,” he brushed the hair from his eyes in frustration.

“I come well armed, I assure you, Mr Blythe,” she answered leadingly, in a way that was so amazingly, enticingly suggestive it made him almost trip over his newly shod feet.

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

Anne had grievously underestimated the trepidatous moment she stood behind Gilbert, seated in one of the high backed dining room chairs carried out onto the verandah, Marilla’s good scissors heavy in her hand. If she failed in this mission she didn’t know how she might face Mrs Blythe on her return with Mr Blythe from town, with the news of having butchered Gilbert’s curls; yet another in a long, embarrassing line of gaffes and follies that would follow her forever.

It was not that she doubted her basic proficiency in this skill so much as the unexpected and disorientating difficulty of Gilbert’s close proximity; of his clean-apple scent; of his still-broad shoulders only just shielded by the towel; of her view looking down to chest and long fingers tapping thighs; or else straight ahead to ears and neck and that dark, fetching, wild expanse of hair. There was no question that it must be done and that she had promised to do it; _If it were done… then ‘twere well it were done quickly… _* she grimaced to herself, for to back out now would make her appear idiotic in the extreme, and also yet another way, innocuous though it might be, in which she would have let him down.

Anne breathed out slowly. To _cut_ his hair, of course, meant she had to _touch _it.

“Is everything alright, Anne?” Gilbert questioned, obviously puzzled by the general lack of activity.

“Of course…” Anne bit her lip.

Gilbert turned slowly in his seat, dark brows raised, hazel eyes warm with humour and lit by the summer sun, lips pausing midway between smile and smirk.

“You don’t have to do this you know, Anne. I don’t want you to feel… uncomfortable.”

“Who’s uncomfortable?” she answered breezily, bold smile flashing, a hand on his shoulder encouraging him to face away from her again. “Alright then, Mr Blythe. Incline your head forward and hold still.”

Picking up a comb, she dipped it into a spare jam jar of water and began to address the hair at his nape, following the path previously taken, tidying from back of ear across neck and around the other side, sharpening the line and bending down to ensure a ruler would not find fault with it. _There. That looked fine,_ she grinned to herself. _I will manage this perfectly well._

And then…

Her fingers reached out, tentatively, to test the length of his hair, threading her fingers through the top curls, pulling one stubborn, resistant brown curl to full length before watching it spring back into shape. _Oh, goodness… _

The feel of Gilbert’s curls beneath her fingers was utterly beguiling… strong but not wiry, thick but not dense, texture soft but not too soft… She had not had much cause to meditate on what this would feel like, before, and trying to define the sensation of it now was quite beyond her. All she knew was that she wanted to lose her fingers in his hair forever. Or at least for the space of the afternoon.

Gilbert shifted imperceptibly in his seat and emitted a long, soft sigh, relaxing his shoulders and leaning, without perhaps realising it, into her hand. How her fingers longed to stray from hair to face, to stroke his cheek, to smooth his brow, to trace his lips. The wanton thoughts were so terrifying and new; she had never felt these stirrings before, and they were _wondrous strange. _** Anne tried to rein herself in by bleak thoughts of Roy, musing whether she had ever felt anything akin to this in all her time with him, but could only remember her pleased response to his deep, velvety voice, and assorted favourable impressions of his general demeanour growing vaguer and more indistinct by the day.

But here was Gilbert… potent and _real_… still recovering and yet already radiating a handsomeness and… and… _maleness. _She had never been _unaware _of his physical charms, and yet… whilst not immune to them, she had felt herself a step removed from his attractiveness… Gil her schoolmate, her nemesis, her chum… she had _never _felt this way around _that _incarnation of him. Even at Redmond his presence had never tugged at something so at the very core of her as it did now… something within her that might unravel at any moment, taking any peace and equilibrium she still possessed with it. Was _this _attraction? Was _this _love? If so, it wasn’t at all the songbird serenade of her silly romances. It wasn’t an exaltation. It was unsettling and painful and stopped her breath in her chest.

Despite her distraction she had made good work on his hair, trimming his top curls and then down to his sideburns and coming to an unsteady stop in front of him, seeing Gil’s eyes closed, noting with satisfaction the dark bruises fading, and the color creeping back into his cheeks.

“Keep your eyes closed, Gil,” she whispered, and he seemed to start at this, but obeyed without demur, hands folded in his lap and features recomposing themselves. She trimmed the tresses above his brow, having to lean into him startlingly close, tantalising inches from him, near enough to note the muscle working overtime in his cheek, dimples softened by his present seriousness. Gently she blew away the stray wisps of hair; dark dandelion tuffs carried off on the breeze, and checked his profile either side, looking for any little faults and only noting his perfection.

“There…” she offered, low-voiced. “Decent again.”

His eyes snapped open; hazel eyes grown so dark that the depth of them and the… the… _blaze _in them so startled her that she stepped backwards too quickly, awkwardly colliding with his large feet in large shoes, and as she stumbled, scissors clattering to the floor, Gilbert reached a long hand out to her, grasping her arm and reeling her back into him, the motion now pitching her forward in ungainly sprawl… straight into his lap.

“Well, now, Anne… it’s nice to be able to sweep a girl off her feet, but that’s not _quite _how I imagined it!” he drawled, his ready humour not quite masking the throaty throb of his voice.

* * *

** ** ** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

** **

Gilbert thought he would never have considered a hair cut to be one of the most erotic experiences of his life to date, but there it was.

When Anne began touching his _hair _he could have moaned aloud at the pleasure of it. His sleeping senses and pulse points – _all _of them, God help him – burst to life and the imaginings that had sustained him through long, lonely hours took on a sudden, sensational, strumming reality.

He had never felt so _alive_.

He had to keep his eyes closed from then on, lest he betray himself entirely, as she made quick progress through his unruly mop and the sharp, cool steel was nothing to the fire of her fingers on his flesh.

By the time Anne was addressing the hair above his brow he had to physically restrain himself from snaking a hand to her waist and drawing her against him. Her scent was intoxicating; her sweet, cool breath maddening. And then, her eyes… when he opened his to meet her surprised gaze, the green in them was an emerald furnace, burning more fiercely the more he stared at her.

And then her stumble, and her delightful fall.

There seemed long moments whilst Anne sat across his knees in shocked immobility, staring up at him, breath quickening and lily white hand against his chest. And then she scrambled off him, mumbling with mortified incoherence, and he recognised her retreat, as of old, but for reasons he dared think very different to the past. Where once she might have moved from him with perplexing self possession, now she shook and stammered, skittish and crimson-cheeked, filling the air with myriad excuses as to why, regretfully, she couldn’t stay. He could read her well – Phil was right on that score – and he felt he could interpret her actions here. She was not running from him but running from the reality of their rightness together, reinforced just now, and if the knowledge was coming to her as it had come to him, years ago, then it was a wave swamping her, and he needed to offer her a raft.

“I _have _taken up too much of your time again, Miss Shirley,” he offered, thoughtfully. “It will be so much easier when I can come and see _you._”

“Don’t get me wrong… I love to see you, Gil!” Anne protested miserably. “It’s been wonderful to come here again. It’s only that… that…”

“You have other commitments, Anne,” he prodded, gently.

“I guess…” she sighed, swallowing.

“Thank you very much for the hair cut.”

“You’re welcome, Gil. Except… you haven’t even seen it! Shall I fetch a mirror? You might not thank me too heartily when you do.”

“I trust you, Anne,” he declared with a soft smile.

This made her pause, and the pause steadied her. Her eyes, still green edged with grey, searched his, as if his gaze alone could answer silent questions their recent time together was prompting her to ask. He wished he could lay all his explanations at her feet, to save her the further pain of examining the questions herself, but if he knew anything about Anne at all he knew she would not be told what she was thinking and feeling, but had to puzzle out the answers on her own.

_Slow… steady… sure… _His father was a genius. He would help Anne get through this; to break through the barrier of years of denial, to come out the other side of it, ready to love him.

They tidied around his barber’s perch, Anne sweeping his hair off the floorboards of the verandah, joking as to whether she should save some sacrificed half curls for his mother, and then stopping abruptly for a moment as if she had the idea to do such a thing for herself. Gilbert meanwhile retrieved the scissors, packing them carefully in the checked cloth and depositing them securely in her basket. He brushed himself off, rubbing his neck as if feeling some hair had fallen down below his collar, and fighting the urge to remove his shirt and shake it out – that indeed would have heralded a startling new level of intimacy between them best currently left to his imagination.

“I’ll walk you to the gate, Anne,” he smiled gently, and he could see her take a visible breath. “You mentioned a few things you might do tomorrow?”

They gathered her basket and left to walk as far as the Blythe gate; he felt he could probably tackle the journey all the way to Green Gables, but he would not force his presence on her. Anne needed time to mull this over, and perhaps a little absence would make her heart grow ever fonder… and as she began to recount her plans for a day with Dora and a visit to the Wrights she relaxed back into herself, even able to smile genuinely as he bid her farewell with a cheeky, courtly bow.

_Slow… steady… sure… _He was a little proud of himself, and his father would certainly be.

* * *

“Anne gone so soon? Is everything alright, son?” John Blythe questioned upon his parents’ return from town, as Gilbert helped him unload supplies from the store, whilst his mother, after staring at his hair and patting it affectionately, began to turn her thoughts to tea.

“Actually… never better, Dad. I just felt Anne needed a little… space. I’m trying to remember your advice. Slow, steady, sure.”

“And it’s working?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well, that is a very good thing. Though the advice was for _you _as for anyone,” his father reminded, clapping him on the back. “And you need a rest from your visitors too, Gil. I can’t say I mind a bit of quiet, and to feel that it’s just we three again, for a while.”

“Should we do something special together tomorrow, Dad? You and Ma and I? We’ve been a bit robbed of time together and – “

“We wouldn’t want to take you away from your friends, Gil,” his father interrupted, his tone careful. “Some of them… well, you might not see them again for a very long time, once you’re fit for your studies.”

Gilbert colored faintly at the implication of friends far and wide, including one in particular, scheduled to leave for Summerside. “Dad, you and Ma are as important to me as anyone. I hope you know that.”

“Of course we do. But if there’s a choice to be made… well, we’d be thrown over in a second. And quite right, too,” a very Blythe grin flashed at him.

“Well… Anne is spending the day tomorrow with Dora, and visiting Diana Wright, so…”

“Ah! So the truth comes out!” John guffawed.

“Dad! Well, alright! But I have good intentions and want to turn them towards you and Ma as well, you know! Speaking of _good intentions_…” he winced at the clumsy segue. “Can I ask you about when you were courting Ma? How you went about it, and how you… well, convinced her that… well… that you wanted to marry her?”

They were leading the horse with feed supplies back towards the barn, but his father stopped in surprise at the question, giving a barking laugh.

“How did I court your mother? _Carefully._”

“She was that hard to win over?” Gilbert asked, bemused.

“So much so that I had to ask her twice.”

He felt his brows fly upwards in astonishment. “Dad! You’re kidding me! Why haven’t you ever told me this before?”

John Blythe stroked their horse thoughtfully, taking a moment before he looked Gilbert dead in the eye.

“Well… you perhaps haven’t had the need to hear it, son. Until now.”

Gilbert swallowed at the not-so hidden meaning. “What happened?”

“Put simply, I rushed her. She wasn’t ready.”

“Wow. So it’s a Blythe trait, then,” Gilbert huffed, frowning as he followed his father into the barn.

They spent a quiet half an hour seeing to the horse, organising feed and talking over plans for the farm for the coming months. His father, uncharacteristically, continued to dart concerned glances at him, until Gilbert was forced to ask him what the matter was.

“It’s just something you said, son. When I was speaking about your mother and I before. Were you referring to your _own _proposal, Gil? To Anne?”

“You know about it?” he paled in the dim light of their surrounds.

“We made an educated guess, which you later, er, confirmed.”

“When I was delirious?”

“Yes, son. Sorry.”

Gilbert sighed, slumping onto a hay bale. “Just as well I don’t have too many secrets, then.”

His father wiped his glistening forehead with his sleeve, shuffling across to seat himself beside him. “Want to tell me about it?”

Gilbert rubbed a dejected hand down his lean face. “It happened during second year. I could… I could see Anne avoiding me, drifting away from me… I loved her and I… I tried to show her, but she didn’t want to move forward in that way… I could see I was losing her, so I panicked. I’d been her best friend, and I ruined it, and then I really _did _lose her.”

His father was silent for a long moment, leaning over his knees, large work-roughed hands steepled together. “Your mother and I figured as much. We’re so sorry for your hurt, Gil. Sorry for a lot of things.”

“None of it was your fault, Dad. I acted rashly, only thinking of myself.”

“And Anne?”

He blew out a long breath. “She found someone whom I thought… whom _everyone _thought… was her dream come true… Handsome, rich, cultured. I had to hear talk of their imminent engagement for _two years… _and then, I wake from the fever, and she’s not engaged to him.”

“Did she explain to you why?”

“You probably heard most of _that _conversation the other day,” Gilbert rolled his eyes. “She just said she realised she didn’t love him. That he didn’t – how did she phrase it? – _belong in her life._”

“That’s a pretty resounding _no, _then.”

He gave a chagrined smile. “I guess so.”

“And so… now?”

“_Now_…” he considered carefully, “I’m thinking that… in fact, another friend even wrote to me with the idea that… I should try again, with her.”

His father nodded approval. “Far be it from me to throw cold water on _that _idea, obviously,” he gave a knowing chuckle. “And it feels different between you two, this time?”

“Yes… everything feels different about this. Even… well, I know I’m not an objective observer, but… even the way she looks at me.”

“I’d go along with that.”

“You would, Dad? _Really? _Sometimes I’m afraid I just see a difference there because I want it so badly.”

“No, son, you’re definitely not imagining it. The thing is now what you’re going to _do _about it. That is, if Anne is the one you think belongs in _your _life.”

“_Yes, _he added, with low-voiced fervour. “There’s never been anyone else for me. It’s just… I’m trying to test the waters with her. With Anne. Not have her afraid of any feelings she may be developing for me. And trying not to be too obvious about my feelings for _her.”_

“To be _slow_ and _steady_ is good. That will allow her to be _sure. And_ you. So what will you _do _differently, this time?”

“How do you mean?”

His father paused, thoughtful. “You said you rushed that time, so now you’re not rushing. You said she wasn’t ready, last time, so how will you know if she’s ready _now_?”

Gilbert blinked rapidly, processing the query. “I… well… we’re friends again, and so… just really spending time together, and letting things take their course…”

“Gil, why do you think Anne turned to this other man? This so-called _dream_ man? I’m not talking about his wealth and connections. Anne wouldn’t ever set store by that, I know her well enough there. I’m asking you what she saw in _him_ that at the time she couldn’t see in _you?_”

“You mean, apart from the dances and the flowers and the carriage rides and her swooning over some stupid sonnet he composed?” he answered darkly.

“Well, you asked about courting,” John Blythe muzzled a smile. “And that sounds like _courting _to me.”

“_I_ took her to dances. _I _gave her flowers.”

“As a suitor?”

“Well, of course not. As a friend.” He scowled, the memory still a pained pinprick to his heart. “She didn’t _want _me as a suitor.”

“You mean, she couldn’t _see _you as a suitor.”

“There’s a difference?”

“There’s a difference when you’ve known one another since you were children, Gil. You were the boy who pulled her hair virtually the day you met her. You _eventually _moved on, thank goodness, and then you became her friend, and her study partner, and her chum, as it were. Her closest chum, to be fair. And then it wasn’t her suitor who proposed to her, it was her friend. Can you blame her for saying no?”

His brows drew together in consternation, and he looked down to his own hands, his response sheepish. “Well, of course not, Dad, not when you put it _that _way…”

“So again, son, my question. What will you do _differently _now?”

“You’re saying I should… _romance _her? Take her out and woo her under the stars? She’d laugh at me the first second.”

“_Would _she? Or is that what the _old _Anne would have done?”

“Well…” Gilbert felt himself begin to bluster, feeling stupid for not even having considered this aspect of things before. “Wouldn’t it be _false, _Dad? I want to _give _her all the romance in the world. Truly I do! She deserves all that and more. But I… well… wouldn’t she feel I’m acting out a role? She’s known me all this time and I… “_Oh. _He stopped up short, hazel eyes wide. “Oh, I see.”

“I’m glad you do, son. It took me a fair while to figure that out for myself.”

“So that’s what happened? With you and Ma?”

John Blythe let out a long sigh. “We became friends. Real close friends. But I didn’t give her time, and she thought I wasn’t serious. And that… I was rushing into things, on account of my experiences… _before._”

“You mean… “Gilbert asked with slight trepidation, “with Miss Cuthbert?”

A look of genuine pain, fast and fleeting, passed across the still-handsome face.

“Yes, Gil. I won’t go into it, but… yes. So I had to _show _your mother I was serious. That I didn’t just want to be _her _chum any longer, because I saw her not just as a friend, but as a… _woman. _And the way to show her was to make her see _me _as a _man.”_

Gilbert felt the color come to his cheeks, ridiculously. “There was a moment today when I… when, as I say, she looked at me differently… she was nervous around me, but a _good _sort of nervous. But I looked into her eyes, Dad, and… I think it was the first time she’d really seen _me, _as I am…”

“Well, then, that sounds like you’re halfway there.”

“I just… it’s so frustrating! I _want_ to do all these things with her! I_ do _want to make it romantic. But _our _kind of romance. Something that’s true to us. It’s just that I… I’m just getting well again, and I can’t do as much yet, and I want to take it slowly with her but we’re running out of weeks left in the summer and…”

“_Gilbert._ Son! Slow down!” a large hand found his shoulder. “One day at a time. Anne’s making the choice, again and again, to be here with you. She made a choice against that other fellow. I have a feeling she’s waiting until you’re well, and until _you _make a choice regarding _her._ Give each other _time,_ Gil. You’ll know when it’s the right time.”

They heard the bell, reminding them that Ella Blythe had afternoon tea waiting for them, and father and son began to head back to the house.

“Thanks for the talk, Dad. I’ve missed this.”

“I have too, son.”

There was a quick hug shared, before they re-emerged, blinking in the glare, and the two tall, broad-shouldered figures made identical long, loping shadows in the dazzling afternoon light.

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

** **

“I swear he’s doubled his weight since you were here last, Anne. He loves a good feed as much as his father does,” Diana Wright declared, beaming at her son rocked gently by her best friend.

“Well, he looks wonderful, Diana, and so do you. Motherhood suits you so.”

“I don’t know about _that_,” Diana whispered, wrinkling her nose. “There’s so much to learn. I’m in constant fear of doing something wrong, especially in front of Mother Wright. Though Fred is a darling. He’s mucking in wonderfully.”

“And so he _should,_” Anne laughed quietly, so as not to disturb Fred Jr, sleepy after his feed. The rocking chair in the nursery was a surprisingly relaxing refuge, and being around a baby again was rather enchanting as a visiting adult and not as a fraught, harassed girl with three times the charges to oversee. “Young men need to be set a good example, after all.” She paused, smiling down at tiny eyes fluttering closed, passing on greetings from all at Green Gables and then remembering a gift in her little bag. “Oh, and Mrs Lynde sent you over something, Diana. Feel free to fish it out,” she indicated her bag with her chin. “It’s a little jar of ointment. Her own recommendation. It’s meant to be, ah, _soothing _for, well, for feeding mothers.”

Diana held up the little jar to the light in wonder, as if a prospector examining a vein of gold in a rock. “Oh for all her gossiping she is a marvel sometimes, that woman! How was she to know? I’ve clean run out of the jar Mother gave me before he was born and Little Fred just feeds _all _the time. The chafing is _awful. _My bosoms haven’t received this much attention since our honeymoon.”

_“Diana!” _Anne gave scandalised guffaw. “Honestly, must I remind you you’re talking to a sweet, demure spinster here?”

Diana’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Well, _Miss _Anne, let me tell you, marriage will chase away the _sweet _and childbirth will well rid you of the _demure.”_

Anne tried to smile at the joke, but the effort wavered terribly.

“Anne, darling, what’s wrong? I thought you were, well, _settled _in your decision to refuse Roy Gardner?”

“I was. I _am. _It’s… it’s not Roy.”

“Then what?” Diana persisted, taking a now-sleeping little Fred from Anne’s arms and depositing him in his crib, tucking him in carefully and looking lovingly down at his slumbering form. The two women snuck out, leaving the door ajar, and settled downstairs in the kitchen for their tea, not as cosily as in the little sitting room but more conveniently situated for hearing any stray cries. “You told me you were getting on wonderfully with Gilbert, that you were both true friends again, and all was well!” Diana reminded, arranging the biscuits Anne had brought with her. “Though I _am _so sorry you didn’t know how sick he was. I feel so badly. I had no idea you didn’t know.”

“Please _don’t _feel badly, Diana. Even Marilla presumed I knew.”

Diana considered her friend carefully, with grave dark eyes. “It must have been such a shock, Anne. It was to _us,_ and we were getting the updates gradually. I know we haven’t had a chance to really talk about it…”

“It _was _a shock…” Anne repeated, quietly, her own eyes downcast, shuddering at the memory. “The feeling I carried with me, that night, the night of the storm, I really can’t properly describe it. I thought maybe it was God punishing me, for having punished _Gilbert _so_… _and that I might lose him, and that I might… that I might lose my own reason for living.”

“_Anne!”_ Diana gasped, now the one to be shocked.

“Well, could _you_ have gone on, if you’d lost Fred?” Anne demanded sorrowfully.

Diana swallowed her surprise. “That is… that is an impossible question, darling. Mostly I try not to think about it. Gilbert… Ruby… there’s so much that, in the end, we can’t control. I just pray a lot these days and try to be thankful. And not have _either _grandmother rub me up the wrong way.”

“Oh, darling Diana!” Anne reached out for her soft, plump hand. “How I’ve missed you! I could have used you in Kingsport with me often enough, that’s for sure!”

“I believe you were too busy knocking back suitors,” Diana joked dryly, and then noted how her friend’s countenance darkened. “But how _are_ you regarding Gilbert? What you were saying before, it… well, it sounded like your feelings for him had changed.”

When Anne was suspiciously silent, withdrawing her hand to take too long with her tea, Diana gasped again.

“_Anne Shirley!_ Are you having _feelings _for Gilbert? _Romantic _feelings?”

“So-called _romantic _feelings have gotten me into trouble before, Diana,” Anne grumbled. “I thought I was having some sort of Grand Romance with Roy, but underneath, in my heart, it was all just pointless pretending.”

Diana measured her response carefully. “Well, I can’t say I’m too sorry not to lose you to Mr Gardner and Kingsport, darling…” she ventured, “but you look so changed from how you were before you went to the Irvings. Just brighter and a little more… _alive. _And Fred reports that Gil had a real pep to him yesterday, despite his horrible ordeal. So my question again… _what’s_ going _on?_”

“_I don’t know_…” Anne felt her response gush from her, like a dam bursting its banks. “Except it’s wonderful and awful and I was so stupid yesterday and I’m so embarrassed and confused!”

Diana’s jaw dropped, if not to the floor, at the very least to the table.

“Oh my goodness, Anne! You’re in love with him! You’re in _love _with _Gilbert!”_

Anne paused in her attempt to cover her face with her hands, past all denial now.

“Well don’t look so pleased about it, Diana! I’m in _agony!_”

“Well I _will _be pleased, Miss Anne! I’ve only been praying for this moment for the last six years! You’re in love with him! With Gilbert! It’s wonderful! I can’t believe it!”

Anne wished she were in a better frame of mind to enjoy Diana’s reaction.

“It’s not _wonderful,_ Di! It’s a nightmare!”

Dark brows came together. “How so?”

“_Christine Stuart.”_

“Who?”

“Only the girl Gilbert’s going to marry.”

_“What?”_

“Oh she beautiful, Diana! Of _course_ she is! He went around with her at Redmond. She has dark hair and violet eyes and is musical and cultured and, well, she’ll probably be plump beyond description by the time she’s thirty, but – “

“Anne, I have _no _idea of whom you talk! Gilbert hasn’t mentioned anyone to Fred. And he tells Fred most things, and Fred tells _me _everything.”

“But don’t you see, Diana? That’s probably what’s happened! Gilbert _knows_ Fred would tell you things and so he hasn’t told Fred in case it gets back to me. To not hurt my feelings.”

Diana rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed by such skewed logic. “Anne, I am positively _convinced _Fred would know if Gil was planning to marry some violet-eyed creature he met at Redmond. And even if he didn’t know, then where _is _she while Gil’s been so sick, for goodness’ sake?”

“That’s what Marilla said…” Anne faltered.

“_Well, _then. I rest my case, Anne. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick regarding Gilbert, you know.” Diana took a lingering sip of tea, sure of her triumph.

“Thank you for your vote of confidence, Diana Wright.”

Diana didn’t even attempt to muzzle her smile. “Well, you’re getting some of your feistiness back, Miss Anne, so _that’s_ a good sign. And can we get back to the _interesting _part of this conversation? Are you admitting you’re _in love_ with _Gilbert?_”

“How do I _know?_” Anne bleated. “How did _you_ know, with Fred?”

“It had been coming on for so long with him, I can hardly remember…”

“But surely there was a moment when… when he ceased being a chum, and started being a… a… well, _not _a chum?” There was a tone of desperation to the query.

“Well, when he first kissed me, I had those issues straightened out fairly quickly.”

Anne’s agog expression was rather priceless. “Diana! When did _Fred _ever kiss you before you were engaged? You hardly courted for five minutes before I turned around and found you were going to marry him!”

“I take it Gilbert has never… kissed _you? _Even before he proposed to you?”

Anne retreated to haughtiness. “You may remember that proposal was not the happiest of occasions, and certainly kissing Gilbert Blythe was the furthest thing from my miserable thoughts! And at any rate _you _keep changing the subject on me!”

“And _you_ keep _avoiding _the subject, Anne! Would you kiss him now, kiss Gilbert, if he wanted you to?”

Anne’s suddenly crimson face betrayed every recent thought she had had in that direction.

Diana’s answering smile was deliciously smug. “Well… perhaps I’d better pass on _that _information to Fred to tell him. It might circumvent all this drama and _agony. _I know things seem so complicated, Anne, but darling, they don’t need to be.”

“Di, I don’t know how to act around him anymore…”

“Well, you _are _in love with him, then!” Diana grinned, and then softened her stance at the sight of those wondering, uncertain grey eyes. “Why don’t you _tell _him, Anne? He’s waited so long to hear it.”

Anne felt her heart lurch in pained hope, before she shoved the feeling back down.

“Di, I… I… aren’t you making an awful presumption, regarding Gil’s feelings for _me? _We’ve only just gotten back to the state of proper friends again, and I couldn’t let anything jeopardise that. I _won’t _let anything jeopardise that.”

“You think he doesn’t love you anymore?” Diana asked quietly.

“Di, haven’t you been _listening? _I broke his heart, and it’s a wonder he didn’t hate me. But he doesn’t, and I’m so grateful. And in the meantime, I have only been _telling _you he spent two years escorting –“

Diana took a violent bite of biscuit. “Anne, if you say the name of that girl who _no one’s _seen or heard of, I think I might scream, even if it _does _wake the baby!”

Anne opened and then closed her mouth against further protest. The spectre of Christine Stuart rose before her, just as it had been haunting her otherwise amorously-inclined dreams.

“Right,” Diana took another sip of tea and then set it aside firmly. “I am going to ask you some sensible questions, Anne, and you must answer them sensibly. _Do you love Gilbert?_”

Anne reddened as her hair, but remained steady. “Yes.”

“Do you think he realises this?”

“No.”

“Are you _certain _you feel he doesn’t love _you?_”

Here she faltered.

“Anne?” Diana prompted, more gently.

“I _would_ be certain… regarding Chr – that girl he was escorting – and everything. They looked so _right _together. She’s everything I’m not. Except… except… yesterday, when I cut his hair, there was a moment, before I tripped and fell into his lap, when I looked at him, and he looked at me, and it was… it was… as if the world stopped. For a second.”

There was a beat of astonished silence.

“Anne, I don’t even know what to _do_ with that statement. You _fell _into his _lap? _You _cut _his _hair?_ Honestly, I am beginning to despair of the both of you. I may have to trap you in our cellar together. Just tell me, Anne. What might have happened yesterday, whilst residing in Gilbert’s _lap,_ if he knew you loved him?”

Anne gnawed her bottom lip with new ferocity. “I think… I think… he might have kissed me.”

“And so, darling, do you honestly think Gil – Gil who we’ve both known forever - would _really _go about kissing a girl _he_ didn’t love?”

Those grey eyes widened in astonished understanding. Anne was left to ponder this as Fred Jr’s sudden, affronted wails reached them downstairs, and Diana gave Anne a look equal parts exasperation and indulgence, accompanying this with a fond kiss to the cheek, before scurrying back up to her son.

* * *

** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

** **

Gilbert savoured every step of the walk from the farm to Green Gables, his tread confident and firm, even as his thoughts fluttered around his head as the beating of butterfly wings, darting to and fro; fleeting ideas for what he could say… and what he could suggest to do… with Anne. Yesterday in her absence he had spent a pleasant, companionable day with his father in the orchard and his mother in the house, feeling the steady rhythm of their lives slowly returning to them, like a reverberating echo of a greeting shouted out many weeks before.

It was a brilliant August now; he had missed July completely, and he smiled at the sun on his face and thought of Dr Spencer, who had visited again and marvelled at the difference a few days had made. His next visit would be in a week, and perhaps after that only if necessary. Gilbert felt stronger and more supple; limbs working with him and not against him, and assessing himself in the glass that morning, he grinned over Anne’s excellent work on trimming his curls, which had encouraged even his mother to raise eyebrows in impressed examination. He was also pleased to note that any weight regained was at least going first to his face, so that he was looking more human male and less skeletal apparition. He was slowly beginning to feel something like his old self again, and with it the tantalising promise of the season pulled him ever forward; down the lane, skirting the edge of the woods and to the sight of the old, handsome homestead, glinting welcome in the light.

There was a moment’s hesitation before he knocked on the green door, knowing that Anne wouldn’t be expecting him, and hoping he was still early enough to waylay her before she made the opposite journey.

Marilla Cuthbert opened the door, and her blue eyes, so troubling for her these past years, grew wide in astonishment, before a rare, full-bodied smile overtook her angular face.

“Why, Gilbert! Aren’t you a wonderful sight this fine morning!” the work-worn hands grasped his tightly, her gaze roaming over his features with a fervour both surprising and gratifying.

“Hello Miss Cuthbert,” he grinned. “It _is_ good to see you, too. I’m very sorry I missed you when you called with Anne the other day.”

“Not at all! Come in, come in! Did you walk all the way over here?”

“I did. I admit it felt very good to do so.”

“Well, Gilbert, you must come in and sit down. Just rest a while and I’ll call up for – “

“_Gilbert Blythe!_” the astonished alacrity of Rachel Lynde broke through the morning quiet, and the matronly woman strode towards him with none of the genteel restraint of her companion, instead reaching up to wrap him in a firm hug. “Well, take a look at you! We knew a Blythe had to be equal to the challenge of licking typhoid, that’s what! Goodness, how good it is to see you! Has anyone called up for Anne?”

“I was just about – “ attempted Marilla, before interrupted yet again, this time by a greeting from the twins; Dora all shy wonder, a pretty girl on the cusp of beautiful; and Davy, still a whirling dervish of enthusiastic energy. Gilbert had seen so little of them the past two years he almost felt he should reintroduce himself.

“You look good, Gilbert. I’m glad you are well again,” Davy offered in amusing formality accompanying Dora’s eager nod, adding a handshake to boot, as if he felt he had to enact a role as sole man of the household. “I thought you might look sicker. Folks were real worried about you here.” He frowned as if Gilbert had caught typhoid explicitly to interfere with his own summer plans, until Gilbert remembered his partiality for Anne.

“Thank you all… Davy, Dora, Mrs Lynde, Miss Cuthbert,” Gilbert nodded to each in turn. “I apologise for the recent worry, and thank you all for your kindness and prayers and baking and preserves. I know my parents join me in expressing our gratitude.” His eyes landed meaningfully on Marilla’s. “And I’m especially grateful to Anne, for her visits.”

Marilla’s smile was small and knowing, before movement on the stairs alerted them all to Anne standing uncertainly, a vision in a soft yellow dress that made her entire being feel it radiated. Her slow smile found him and made his heart thunder; could it have been only a day since he had seen her?

“Gilbert…” she murmured, eyes shining. “You beat me to the punch!”

“Well, it’s not often I do that, Miss Shirley.”

She grinned as she descended the stairs and crossed the room to reach him; a glowing orb floating towards him, luminous and lovely.

“Will you have some tea?” she asked.

“Yes, thank you. Ah, and I couldn’t resist these I stumbled over on the way…” he offered the posy of wildflowers he had paused to collect; a joyous profusion of mayflowers and asters and absolutely no violets.

Anne accepted them with a firm blush, and he wondered if this was too bold an offering and too public a display. But Anne’s beautiful face told a different story, and again he silently thanked the wisdom of his father.

“I was wondering whether, afterwards, we might take a walk, Anne? I seem to recall a certain apple tree could be overdue for a visit.”

Her grin and nod were a delightful affirmation, and he felt the hope flower in him… budding; blossoming; blooming.

“What apple tree? Where? Can I come, too?” Davy demanded as Gilbert was ushered to a seat.

“_No!_” Marilla and Rachel answered together in perfect unison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *William Shakespeare Macbeth (Act 1 Sc 7)  
**William Shakespeare Hamlet (Act 1 Sc 5)


	8. Clasping

The apple tree, lone sentinel in the patch of bright sunlight at the edge of the woods, heard the couple long before it saw them.

The respective sounds were unmistakeable, for the apple tree did not hear many a human voice, excepting the occasional shout or cry of a child, come to investigate deep into the dark, possibly haunted woods in stout hearted courage, only invariably to run out again in trembling fright. But it would know _these_ voices as it would the rustling rumba of its own leaves in the breeze. The light, lilting laugh; that deep, warm chuckle, and the pleasant low resonance of another enquiry, answered with a girlish eagerness, which wove the weave of their conversation. Their talk was fluent and fast-flowing; a gentle zephyr, carrying happiness and hope on the air, and then, as the couple emerged from the long shadows of the woods, they grew quiet, crossing into the sunny glade and towards the tree with an almost awed reverence, and the tree stood tall and proud in their sight.

The apple tree searched back a long time to remember a visit from this couple together; the tall, handsome, dark-haired man who had first discovered it, had visited recently; pale and gaunt and exhausted, in mind and body. He had come haphazardly these past years, always alone, staring up as if expecting the answers to the universe to be found in bark or branch, blossom or fruit, hazel eyes dull and mouth downturned in defeat. The pretty woman and her titian hair, a blaze of fire as of the setting sun, it had not noted for a long time… Until, in the aftermath of the recent storm, in the surprise serenity of the early morning, she had come, breaking through the woods as the dawn itself, tears and hair streaming, sobbing at its roots, hugging its trunk, begging an offering before snapping off a low sprig in broken apology. Once, the apple tree might have imagined the figures in other incarnations; a favourite dream was the woman trekking back and forth to collect its apples as loving offering from Eve to Adam, taking from ground and branches both, _picking it clean _to bake in pies presented as gift and in gratitude. The apple tree much preferred _this _to the dread nightmare of the man, anguished and beyond comfort and even reason, _incandescent with rage, _hacking it to pieces until it was just a _shredded stump._ * But these two, now, made a peaceable, harmonious picture; the man in happy good health, the woman in glowing good grace, and when they turned their eyes from the tree to one another, there was laid before it the perfect promise of new possibility.

The man set down a basket at his feet and stepped forward with three long strides, large hand placed on its trunk as if a stethoscope over a heartbeat, staring up into the dusky fruit on its lofty branches, grown high and haphazard as no cultivated orchard-grown specimen ever could. Then, astonishingly, he leant in, nose to bark, inhaling the wild, rangy scent and breathing out again in the one long, laboured breath. He had composed himself when he turned to the woman, smile calm yet contemplative.

“The smell is the same, Anne, as the sprig you brought me. I would have known it anywhere. I knew it then, even after my fever. It’s wild and wonderful. _Come_. See.”

He gestured to her in gentle encouragement, and she stepped forward with a small smile, her look to him both indulgent and inspired, and she copied his motion, pausing first to stoke the rough trunk before plunging her own shapely nose against it. _Thank you _she whispered into its bark, the tremulous sound reaching all the way to heartwood, and the apple tree shivered delightedly in response from roots to crown.

The man and woman both stepped back, admiring of the specimen before them as only the son of an orchardist and the truest of tree lovers could do.

“It’s trying its’ best after the storm – I can see that,” the man nodded, hands on slim hips. “Battered about, but still standing.”

“As _you_ are,” the woman gave her companion a shining smile, which earned a wry chuckle. “It was stripped bare of all its lovely blossoms, Gil, but here it was – so exposed, so vulnerable, and yet so resilient and strong. I thought… I thought that if the tree – _your _tree – could survive, then…” she hesitated, looking away, unable to finish the thought, and missed the lovely soft smile he gave her, but not the pressure of his large hand as it reached out to clasp hers.

“We’re both still here, Anne.” Whether the man meant he and the tree or he and the woman, the voice was so low and fervent the tone transformed the words to vow.

“Yes…” the woman nodded, giving uneven reply, “and I’m grateful for it, every day.”

She turned luminous, large grey eyes to his, and the palpable tremor ran through the apple tree at the force of feeling between them. What had changed? The woman had never looked that way to the man before, as if realising how much her own joy, now and in the future, was utterly, irrevocably tied to him. The man, who had always looked that way towards _her, _squeezed her hand in acknowledgement, and then, as if indeed the trapped passion of years had burst forth from him, leant to kiss her hand, lingeringly, gallantly, meaningfully.

The apple tree worried that the man, neat brown curls tamed above intelligent dark brows, had overreached himself, but it noted with some relief the deep, pleased blush tinge the woman’s cheeks, and she gave the man such a starry smile as would have encouraged the hardest, most impenetrable heart to leap in response. _This_ man’s heart was neither, and was barely able to withstand such onslaught.

“Well, now…” the man smiled again, and then cleared his throat, eyes lighting at the thought of a challenge. “I wonder if I can find it?”

“_Find_ it?”

“The point at which one tree became two. I have a riotous sprig in my bedroom that will soon be demanding its own plot in our garden.”

The man, still with hand firmly around the woman’s own, thus began an exacting search of the lower limbs, where they tapered off to smaller branches, and beyond that to twigs, and then to green leaves with their distinctive ragged edge. New budding blossoms were dotted about, enticingly eager to flower anew. The storm had wrenched some small branches and twigs away, now laying as a rough carpet beneath the umbrella of its canopy. The man’s quest was therefore more difficult than anticipated; there were several spots that might have given up the twig Anne had taken as talisman; and then he came to a carefully severed section, laying the broad thumb of his free hand against it, rubbing across the sever wonderingly.

“_Here,” _he stated, and then drew her hand up to test his theory, seeing that, a tiptoe, the woman would have reached it.

“It’s all a bit of a blur, coming here that morning…. but… possibly, yes,” was his answer.

“Well, let’s pretend I’m right. But _you _were wrong about one thing, Anne,” he turned to her, joined hands still outstretched. “Not _my _tree. _Ours._”

One brilliant, shiny tear traced a path down flushed cheek, pink lips quivering, and the man raised the same thumb with infinite tenderness to brush it away.

The apple tree halted its swaying as much as possible, unwilling to interrupt the moment. It thought the man might embrace the woman, then and there, and goodness knows it had been long enough in coming. Stilled together as if on an expectant breath, hands clasped and eyes searching one another’s, the duo might have been the embodiment of Love itself. And then, despite all its’ efforts, the playful breeze gusted across a delicate branch, dislodging a clutch of ripe fruit which landed with a series of ceremonial clunks at their feet.

The moment was broken, and the man and woman, always keenly appreciative of life’s absurdities, broke away themselves, escaping into embarrassed laughter.

“Do you think _our tree _is trying to tell us something, Anne?” the man grinned, scooping up the dusky-red offerings, extending one to the woman as gift.

* * *

** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

“Argh….” Gilbert groaned some time later, clutching his stomach with extravagant theatricality, sitting up from where he had reclined the long, lean length of his body in relaxed languor on the picnic rug underneath the apple tree. “Too. Much. Food!”

Anne laughed merrily, eyes dancing, setting aside her apple to focus on his form. “You really _didn’t _have to finish that last piece of pie, you know.”

“I know…” he moaned, rubbing his abdominals gingerly. “But it was a matter of principle, Miss Shirley. I needed to see that I still _could.”_

“Spoken like the true sixteen year old you still are inside,” she shook her head in mock reproach, through the gleam of fondness softened the schoolmarm. “The one who just _had _to come first, be fastest, be the best at everything.”

He made a sound that was an indignant combination of guffaw and splutter. “My lady, as I recall, I was rarely running that race by myself!” he smiled broadly at the memory.

“No…” Anne’s tone softened, and her expression grew wistful. Sitting opposite him, she drew her knees up to her little pointed chin, resting it upon her skirts. “But I sometimes wonder what would have happened to us, if our earliest memories of one another weren’t quite so… _combative._”

“Don’t trample on those memories, Anne. They’re pretty precious to me.”

“Even the pond incident?” she sighed dramatically.

He toyed with a smile. “_Especially _the pond incident.”

She lifted her eyes to his at his earnest manner, herself, too, grown suddenly serious. “I don’t see _how, _Gil, considering what a mean and spiteful ninny I was.”

“Oh, the _mean _and _spiteful _I could have well done without,” he offered teasingly. “But there was something in your eyes that day… I think you wanted to forgive me, but you just wouldn’t allow yourself. I remember _that _annoyed me more than if you had decided against me forever.”

“You’re right,” she flushed, dipping her gaze again. “I _did _want to_._”

His look to her was searching, and he attempted to lighten the gravity in hers. “Any other revelations I should know about, Miss Shirley?”

“Do we limit ourselves to school, or do we just leap forward to Redmond?” she attempted wryly.

“_Redmond?” _Gilbert felt his mouth go dry. “What dread disclosures do you have about Redmond?”

His jocular tone was not quite permeating that pale, perturbed face.

“Oh, Gil… you must know how proud I am of you, and how sorry I am. How very sorry.”

“You’re_ sorry _you’re proud of me?”

“Gil!” she rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I am trying to say…that… I wasn’t there for you. I let you run yourself into the ground. I should have checked on you. I should have been… a better friend, if nothing else.” She seemed to dash her hand, quickly, against her cheek, as if to offset a new tear.

“Anne-girl…” Gilbert offered quietly. “We said we weren’t going to do this. A clean slate. Remember?”

“Yes…” she whispered forlornly.

“And you _were _there for me… at least in my thoughts. Our old sense of competition still fuelled me. I will be going to medical school on the strength of it, after all.”

“Gil, you will be going to medical school on the strength of your_ hard work_ and _brilliance_,” she protested loyally.

He paused, feeling himself color faintly at her praise, still unused to the sensation of her support after the years of distance and awkwardness.

“Hard work and a few brains were nothing to having your voice in my ear, Anne, all this time, urging me on. Even if you didn’t always know it.” She certainly didn’t have to know the rest; that her voice had been in his ear as taunt as much as encouragement, reminding him he had clearly not been enough if she had been so easily swayed by Gardner’s charms … that he had offered up his health, his spirit and sometimes his sanity, in chasing the Cooper, because he hadn’t had anything else to hope for.

“And you are _not_ responsible for me taking the study too far, Anne,” his own brow furrowed. “I could have found a better balance. I just… didn’t want to.”

Well, _that_ was the God’s honest truth, at any rate. There had been something perversely satisfying in prostrating himself before the altar of this all-encompassing obsession with academic perfection. He had believed, in the absence of any other way to control his life, that he could control _this; _instead, inevitably, finding it had come to control _him. _His studies had offered the perfect excuse for everything – to not go out, to not see friends, to not see _her. _

Gilbert watched Anne gnaw her lower lip, as if she was uncertain as to whether to tread further down this very bleak path. This was not what he desired for her – for _them. _This was not what this day, and all their future days, was meant to be about.

“I _will _allow you to proud of me, though,” he redirected with a smug look, and was relieved to see her lips quirk. “As long as you know how proud I am of _you, _Miss Principal of Summerside High_. _I just wish…” and here he almost bit off his own tongue, to have drawn them back from one cliff face only to blithely jump off another, “I just wish, at Convocation, we’d had that chance. To tell each other. To share that joy and acknowledge that pride. That we had allowed ourselves… that moment.”

“You mean _I _didn’t allow us that moment. When I wouldn’t dance with you.”

Her eyes were downcast again and the flush to her cheeks had morphed to magenta. Her fingers worried her lovely yellow dress, running distractedly up and down a seam. He wished to God he _could _ask her about the damned dance. Had she been worried about Gardner’s reaction? Did she feel embarrassed for having chosen his lilies? Had she not wanted him to get his hopes up again?

“Well…” he swallowed carefully, teetering again on the precipice. “There will be other dances, Anne.”

Her face was so sorrowful, he wanted to reach out and embrace her, there on the rug before God and the heavens and their apple tree, and chase away every last remnant of regret she was clasping too tightly.

“But… that’s the _point, _Gil! There _won’t_ be! You’ll be in Kingsport and I’ll be in Summerside and we’ll hardly see each other! You’ll be able to pick up with your old… _acquaintances…_” she fairly grimaced at the word, “and I’ll be there not knowing a soul, far away from everyone and… _you._” Her voice wavered betrayingly.

His heart lurched at her open vulnerability, and the confession of her need of him.

“I thought you used to say good friends are always together in spirit, Anne.”

“Yes, well, that won’t count for much, when you’re surrounded by all those _new_ good friends every hour of the day!” her eyes flashed as green as her envious retort, and he had to bite down on his lip to stop his sudden ungentlemanly delight in her discomfort.

“More like I’ll be surrounded by _cadavers_ every hour of the day,” he offered with admirable blandness, fighting his grin.

This earned him a fetching scowl, doing beautiful justice to the long ago near-drowned lily maid who had viewed his passage along the pond towards her with such a scornful air.

With a sudden shamed clarity, Gilbert recalled his father’s words to him, and the transition from _chum _to _suitor _he was trying to navigate. Their banter was a marvellous mainstay of their relationship and always would be, but was it really just another way to shield their true feelings? Hadn’t Phil herself warned him of this as well?

_That I didn’t just want to be her chum any longer, because I saw her not just as a friend, but as a… woman. And the way to show her was to make her see me as a man.”_

Well, _this _wasn’t showing her he was a man, let alone the man for _her;_ _this _was showing her he was still a blooming idiot.

“Anne, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to jest,” he backpedalled. “I want to be serious about this, actually – “

“Oh, yes, Gilbert Blythe, you are so very serious about this!”

_Oh, blast it!_

_“No, _Anne,” he shimmied over the rug towards her, taking her hand again in his, and her startled look to him was of a deer caught in the crosshairs. “I want you to know it doesn’t matter where I am or who I’m with, you are _always _with me. In my heart. _Always._ Please know that. I hope you understand you’re one of the most important people in the world to me.”

He didn’t quite know whether her stupefied silence was a good thing or not. Had it been too much? Could he _never _quite get the balance right with her?

Her mouth formed an _O _of surprise, and she was immobile for long moments.

“Yes, Gil,” she murmured. “As… as _you _are, to me.”

He expelled a silent breath of relief, and then followed her look down to their clasped hands, his thumb tracing a lazy circle over hers. His touch was an intimate one, he realised, and it felt so natural he’d been completely unaware. But she was not uncomfortable with him, like this – he had seen her uncomfortable around him too many times before to not mark the difference now – she was welcoming of the touch, with a burning-faced wonder. God in his Heaven, what he wouldn’t give to kiss her right now – _now_, this very moment! – and let there be no confusion between them when their bodies spoke to one another instead.

_Steady… slow… sure… _he reminded himself, a little desperately.

“With that in mind, Miss Shirley,” his voice low with emotion, “I believe a while back we were talking about the missed opportunity for a dance. A situation I hope to rectify if you will honour me with your company this coming Saturday evening.”

“A … dance?” she blinked her confusion.

Gilbert released her hand, reluctantly, to give her space.

“And not just _any _dance I’ll have you know, but _the _dance. The social event of the summer. At White Sands Hotel.”

_“White Sands?”_

He took a moment to savour her reaction, and thanked Providence for being on his side, for once.

“I’m sorry for the short notice, Anne. During my fever I received an invitation from the White Sands School Board. The school has an important upcoming anniversary, and is holding a celebratory dinner and dance, at the hotel, for past pupils and most esteemed and beloved former schoolmasters, such as yours truly.”

He allowed a grin here, thinking how perfect was both the timing and the occasion.

“Oh, Gil! That is… that is… very flattering for you, and a very generous invitation…” she hedged.

“Is there a _yes _somewhere in there, Carrots?”

The smile she gave at the old nickname was a wavering one. “I would love to come with you, Gil. Only… are you sure, _absolutely_ sure, there’s no one else you would wish to invite instead?”

He tried to interpret those large grey eyes staring into his, grown smoky and dark with an uncertainty, nay, an apprehension, he didn’t quite understand.

“Anne, there is _no _one else roaming this earth whom I wish to invite more than yourself!”

She smiled, wholeheartedly, at that, at last.

“Thank you, then, Gil! Absolutely _yes! _What a delightful evening I’m sure it will be!”

He was rather hopeful of that himself. He was bursting now with the possibilities that were unfolding… of being able to properly woo her, without artifice but also without uncomfortable conjecture, far away from prying Avonlea eyes. To have a special outing to share with her; one that had nothing to do with the mixed memories of Redmond, but was unique to them, and hearkened back to a simpler time when their days followed the gentler rhythms of teaching and A.V.I.S meetings and study together, and the most exciting point of his entire week was dashing back to Avonlea on a Friday and taking the familiar walk through these very woods to meet her. That breathless moment when he saw she waited for him at the gate, or he came upon her in the garden, or gathering flowers, or bursting through the front door of Green Gables to regale him with her latest plan or fancy.

“I am certain it will be,” he replied warmly. “Our first dance together, after all.”

“Oh Gil, you well know you’ve been my escort to plenty of dances!”

_Ay, there’s the rub. _** And here was his moment.

“No, Anne, that’s not what I mean. Yes, I was proud to escort you to all those dances, but we invariably went together in a group with the other girls, and with some of the other fellows too, and I had to share you with half of Redmond. We fell into going together, as good friends do, with no expectations and no intent. I never went with you properly, as your date… I never, ever asked you to attend with me specifically, out of choice and not out of habit…”

He took up her hand again, his own clasp as strong and steady as his next words.

“So I am formally asking you here, _now,_ Miss Anne Shirley, to please allow me to escort you to _this _dance. In the full _expectation _that we will get very dressed up, and I will collect you in my carriage, and I will drop you back home incredibly late - late enough to unsettle Miss Cuthbert and infuriate Mrs Lynde with the scandalous impropriety of it. I will be so attentive towards you during the evening that other fellows will clearly see my _intent _written all over my face, and dare not approach you, for fear of my jealous wrath. And if they _do _take their lives into their own hands by requesting a turn about the room with you, I will have you brandish your dance card at them, which will be full of my _own _name beside every dance except the one, which I will allow myself to sit out and admire you from afar as you waltz with one dreary school official or other, just so that I can relish that perspective of you. Let it be clearly understood, Anne-girl, _this _is what I mean when I ask you to accompany me to this dance.”

His voice had become as velvety and persuasive as any melancholy hero, but his hazel eyes flamed with an ardent fire very much his own. He was secretly satisfied to see the heave he felt in his chest echoed in hers, as her trim torso rose and fell unsteadily. The red flush to her pale cheeks snaked a path all the way down her alabaster throat, and her teeth bit that lower shell pink lip enticingly. After years of patient, penitent waiting, and then the sad estrangement following his disastrous proposal, _here_ was the point he’d striven to reach; to declare himself with ardour and audaciousness, and to have his affections mirrored in those eyes as green as the foliage above them, and that small hand in his tighten its grip on his own.

“With that in mind, Anne, will you do me the honour of accompanying me to the dance at White Sands?”

“Yes, Gilbert…” she made awed answer. “Thank you. The honour will be mine.”

He smiled slowly at her reply, his features a study in mature, manly composure, when on the inside he was shouting his delight and cavorting like a schoolboy. He continued to nurse his grin as they lamented the other responsibilities calling their time together that day to a close. The high noonday sun overhead was surely the thing responsible for that new flare to her cheeks every time she darted a glance at him, as they packed up the picnic things with quiet resolve.

Gilbert patted the trunk of the apple tree in fond farewell, and then turned to offer his arm.

“Thank you for a wonderful picnic, Anne.”

“Thank you for the company, Gil. And for the suggestion of location. It was perfect.”

_Yes… _he thought to himself. _It just about was._

* * *

The man picked up the basket and set off with the woman, both too aware of one another to realise what a charming couple they made. The tree wished for a few more moments with them, just so, but they were soon across the glade and back into the shelter of the woods, as quiet and contemplative as had their arrival been.

The apple tree might have been disappointed by the careful camaraderie of the retreating pair, and would have guessed surely a kiss to have accompanied their passionate conversation, but it sensed the story was not quite finished for the woman and the man.

Until next they met, it would work on its blossoms, and bide its time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am obviously not the first to write about the famed wild apple tree, nor I’m sure the last. I am attempting to write it in to every one of my long stories, in the same way that I feel a chapter is incomplete without at least one reference to Blythe curls, shoulders, or both. With that in mind, thank you to everyone for their lovely responses to this story so far. It is a real effort, I assure you, to find ways in which to progress the intimacy of these two (and stick to my commitment to book canon) without this becoming a kissing book, al la The Princess Bride. 
> 
> *Sharp-eyed readers may know the stories I reference in the third paragraph. The writers are Excel Aunt from 'Being a Blythe' (Ch 8 ) and elizasky. Both favourites of mine for a long time now and who both, as so many of you know, have excellent stories and collections here x
> 
> **William Shakespeare Hamlet (Act 3 Sc1)


	9. Longing (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for your embracing of this story!
> 
> With apologies for the additional wait here - would two quick chapters be adequate compensation?!
> 
> Love  
MrsVonTrapp x

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

** **

Anne sat at her little dressing table in her east gable room, staring with grave grey eyes at the woman looking back at her, unblinkingly unimpressed in her assessment. Nothing was working. She had felt Queen of Redmond the first time she had worn this gown; the cream shift with the organza overlay, adorned with Phil’s delicate rosebuds, which had made her the envy of all, even her unlikely seamstress. She wished she had Phil’s bolstering presence now, for all her long-ago pride and confidence had definitely deserted her. She was too pale, making an uncomfortable contrast to those unfairly vivid seven freckles, and her hair refused to cooperate despite all manner of cajoling. Even Matthew’s pearls, which she had wanted to wear in his honour, tonight, looked wrong, with their gleaming ivory clashing rather than complimenting the soft cream of the material at her décolletage.

There was a knock at the door, and then Dora entered, hazel eyes lighting with admiration, arm extended so as to not wrinkle her precious cargo.

“Hello Anne. Here is your wrap Marilla pressed for you.”

“Oh darling, thank you! Will you lay it on the bed for me?”

Anne gave the girl a distracted smile, turning back to the glass with perturbed expression. Should she try flowers in her hair? She had no special flowers to hand, and the idea, in this dress, just made her think of Roy and his orchids. Which made her think of the dance he had taken her to, in this dress, which just reminded her, miserably, of the first time she had seen Christine Stuart.

_Calm yourself. She will NOT be there tonight. She is not a part of this evening. _

Hardly helping matters was the beautiful blonde maiden coming to stand behind her reflection; a fair Elaine if ever there was one, girlishly and charmingly awed.

“Anne, you look like a regal princess, escaped from a fairytale castle.”

“Oh Dora, you are a sweet. I _feel _I resemble the fairytale _troll _hiding under the drawbridge.”

Dora gave a bemused smile at this exaggeration, surprisingly knowing for her still-tender years. “I don’t think Gilbert will think that.”

At the sound of his name said aloud, Anne’s heart gave a queer flutter. She hardly knew _what _Gilbert might think of her ensemble tonight. This was certainly the very best dress she possessed, but it was not new to _him, _however much he may have been too busy admiring _starry violet eyes and a rose-leaf complexion _* to much notice it that long-ago evening. But there hadn’t been time to make over an old dress, nor purchase a new one, let alone, much to her bitter disappointment, to be off to Carmody in search of a jeweller to fix a certain gold chain on which had rested a pink enamel heart.

“Dora, darling, how is the back of my hair?”

“Ahh…” the younger girl hesitated, brows drawing together.

Anne grimaced. “You won’t offend me, Dora. I know it is _not _at its best.” Anne in that moment sorely lamented the passing of the Patty’s Place days, where preparing for a dance had been a cosily communal affair, with jokes and laughter and running in and out of one another’s rooms with last minute sartorial distress calls, and there had always been someone on hand to help with recalcitrant hair.

“Could I… help? Minnie May always gets me to try out the latest updos for her, in her room where her mother won’t see. I’ve gotten quite good.”

“_Have _you, darling?” Anne smiled in the mirror at her, touched to think here was a second generation of girls from Green Gables and Orchard Slope dreaming together and imagining themselves grown up. _When _had little placid Dora Keith become this poised young lady? Even Davy, for all his unfortunate blurting, was a much calmer and steadier presence now, and already a real farmer in the making.

“Well lovely, thank you, I am very willing to have you try.”

_I certainly have nothing to lose… _Anne breathed to herself, giving over to Dora’s gentle ministrations. Soon enough, deft young fingers had taken her hair down and refashioned it into an elegant French roll, securing it with a few pins and the two gold combs with a matching little rosebud each that Phil had also gifted her, and then teasing out the tendrils to soften either side of her face, and parting the curls over her brow down the centre. The entire process took less than ten minutes. Anne gave her own awed look of genuine surprise.

“Dora, sweetheart! You’re a marvel! How can I thank you?”

The effusive praise seemed to be thanks enough, for Dora blushed deeply, and was grinning as she accepted Anne’s enthusiastic kiss. Anne felt instantaneously better groomed and infinitely more polished, sharing a giggling moment of relief spraying scent over she and Dora both until the room smelt as if a bower of lilies had sprouted there.

Still grinning herself, Anne turned back to the glass, but soon reached to fiddle pensively with her pearls. She sat down again and reached into the drawer, taking out the little box, opening it and holding the golden chain and the pink heart in her tremulous hand.

Dora gave an audible gasp. “Anne! The pendant – it’s beautiful! Oh, that would look tremendous on you! I don’t think the pearls are quite right.”

Anne couldn’t help but smile briefly at such a confident opinion, but could hardly fault her hypothesis, looking down at the necklace sadly.

“Did… did Mr Gardner…?”

“No,” Anne closed off that conjecture quickly. “This came last Christmas… from Gilbert.”

Dora’s eyes had widened comically, and her lovely features took on a starstruck dreaminess that seemed to owe more to Minnie May Barry’s overly romantic sensibilities than Dora’s own.

“He must have loved you a very long time, then.”

It was a statement of fact rather than question, and Anne’s face immediately flooded with color. _She didn’t dare think… she couldn’t possibly hope… and yet… and yet… _

“The chain is broken,” she admitted despondently, as if that also negated any possibility of it being a token of love and not, as she had thought at the time, merely an amusing callback to those candy hearts of their school days.

“I have another, Anne,” Dora, nonplussed, swiftly left the room to journey down the hall, and Anne had barely time to protest before she returned, holding up the gold chain with the little cross she wore on Sundays and for best, proceeding to slide the cross off in unbothered sacrilege before presenting he chain to Anne.

“Love, I don’t think…”

“Try it.”

With surprisingly shaky fingers, Anne unclasped the strand of pearls and laid them down gently. She slid the little blush-hued heart off its severed chain, threading it back through Dora’s, and fastened it after two fumbling attempts. It wasn’t a perfect match, and the chain sat a little lower than the original, now making an audacious lunge for her cleavage, but there was a rightness to wearing the heart that she could not deny. It added a little needed color, and beautifully matched the romance of the dress. The pinky hue reflected the tiny rosebuds scattered over bodice and skirt, let alone the new tinge to her cheeks.

“Perfect,” Dora sighed, pleased with a job well done.

There was a thundering as of horses’ hooves on the stairs, and then a boisterous knock at Anne’s door.

_“Gilbert’s here!”_ Davy bellowed, as if town cryer announcing the village was under siege, loud enough to shake the very foundations of the house, and the news of their visitor likewise battered Anne’s just recovered equilibrium.

* * *

** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

** **

Earlier, Gilbert fiddled with his frustrating tie, long fingers, certainly browner than at the start of the summer, refusing to oblige him with the perfect knot just when he needed it most. He wanted to be slightly early over to Green Gables, to see if he couldn’t find an opportunity to ask Marilla for a moment with him in the next few days. He felt sure, surer than ever, of Anne’s altered feelings towards him, and there had been several breathless exchanges by the apple tree to confirm in his mind what he’d dared start to know in his heart. Hazel eyes roamed his appearance critically, smiling at the neat brown curls he had purposefully left pomade-free in Anne’s honour, noting with relief that his face and body had filled out again and that ironically, despite his illness, he was looking better now than he’d had the past year. But then, he’d had little to look forward to this past year, apart from the ceaseless grind of study and the bitter torment of seeing Anne with Roy. Now he had tonight, and the dance that was all about enjoying their time together; to close the chapter on the past and to open a new page to the future. If he could just manage this blasted tie!

A swift knock at the door heralded his father, his entire face smiling at the sight of his boy, tall and resplendent and heathy and _here. _If there had ever been a slight twinge of disappointment that Gilbert hadn’t seen his future following him onto the farm, John Blythe had felt it vanish the instant Gilbert had collapsed in the kitchen that first morning, deathly pale and murmuring incoherently. There had only been, ever after, the most desperate prayers for his survival and then recovery; that his evident happiness should follow so closely behind was an eventuality that even John, ever the quiet optimist, could not have dared hoped for.

“I’ve hitched the horse to the buggy for you, son. Everything’s ready.”

“Thanks very much, Dad.”

“The question is – are _you?_” John eyes gleamed with his son’s own humour.

“Well, that all depends…” Gilbert rolled his own eyes, still wrangling his white bow tie, “since I _still _can’t seem to dress myself.”

“Let’s see to that,” John gave an indulgent look, his own long, tanned, work-worn fingers taking up the reins. “You know it’s far easier to manage when there’s a woman around to do it,” he offered leadingly, barely able to muzzle his grin.

“Thanks, Dad. I’ll keep that in mind,” Gilbert replied drolly.

Tie righted, Gilbert took a moment to check himself one more time, blowing out a steadying breath.

“I’ve never been this nervous about anything before, not even exams,” he shook his head in despair, restless fingers now moving to adjust his pocket hankerchief.

“Gil, were you thinking… _tonight?_” John Blythe’s eyes had widened.

“Tonight?”

“To propose, son.”

“_Propose?_” Gilbert blanched. “Oh, Dad, no, I hadn’t really… It’s a little public, and I’d prefer somewhere quieter, somewhere belonging to me and Anne… What, do you think Anne is expecting me to, tonight? I haven’t even had a chance to talk to Marilla yet, or to – ‘’

“Son! Easy! I wasn’t suggesting anything. Just trying to assist you, however we can. Your mother _and_ I.”

“I don’t think Ma will want to assist me in proposing again to Anne…” Gilbert remarked, low-voiced.

“Don’t be so sure. She just wants you healthy, first, and happy, a close second. And even s_he _has had to admit that Anne has played an instrumental part in both.”

Gilbert flushed, ever wonderous at the truth behind both statements.

“Just don’t tell her I told you so,” his father added with a cheeky wink, clapping him on the back.

“How did you know I was thinking it?” Gilbert’s cheeks further heated. “Is it that obvious?”

John Blythe stared at the handsome man before him, slightly outclassed now in both height and breadth, and completely surpassed in way of brains and drive and potential, and content to be so. There was the eagerness of the boy he had been in the hope and light now radiating from him; such a happy contrast to the pale, shadowed figure who had arrived back to them, defeated and already desperately ill.

“It’s only obvious you’re a man in love is all, Gil. Nothing wrong with that.”

Gilbert couldn’t help his sheepish smile, but then grew thoughtful. “I have some savings, Dad. I didn’t spend so much these past months with all the study…” he paused, swallowing. “On Monday I thought I’d go up to Charlottetown and… and… see about a ring. I want to have one this time… I didn’t even think of it last time, not that it would have made a difference _then, _but…”

“You want to be prepared,” John offered gently, nodding. “I understand. But will you see us before you dash off anywhere? If your thoughts are still turned that way, that is.”

Gilbert grinned. “My thoughts have _always _turned that way, Dad!” He patted himself down, and then arched dark eyebrows. “Well, will I pass muster, then?” he asked.

John Blythe’s heart surged with pride, but it wouldn’t do for junior to get too cocky.

“Ah, now _that _your mother will have firm and definite opinions on! Come and let her gush over you before you set off.”

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

** **

Descending the stairs of Green Gables with utmost care, Anne allowed herself a little thrill of anticipation, noting the tall and utterly handsome guest with his dark curly head inclined in quick and earnest conference with Marilla, before turning to watch her own arrival. Anne realised, vaguely, how Dora smiled softly and Davy grinned broadly and Rachel looked her up and down with proud and evident approval. Marilla’s brimful blue eyes took in all the features of the dress Anne had tried to conjure in her letter home from Redmond so long ago. But Anne’s own eyes sought hazel ones, shining with an open admiration that had stilled that lean, loved face, and the slow smile that fired his gaze was a light that chased away all the shadows that dared linger regarding their soon-separation.

“Hello, Anne,” Gilbert greeted huskily, meeting her at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes seemed unable to know where to settle, roaming from her face to awed appraisal of her dress, coming to a stuttering stop at the sight of the enamel heart, before remembering himself and lifting his gaze again to hers.

“Hello, Gil,” she was obviously incapable of offering a more imaginative greeting.

“Anne, you look…” Gilbert hesitated, as if searching through his vocabulary for an acceptable adjective, “just… _breathtaking._”

The simple statement and the touching sincerity behind it illustrated the stark contrast between Gilbert and Roy, and one it had taken her a painfully long time to realise. Roy in this situation would have waxed lyrical for several minutes, uttering all sorts of romantic-sounding epithets, possibly invoking poetry into the bargain. On the surface his compliments would be a swoonworthy serenade, and in the beginning she did indeed thrill to them, but the more they were offered so easily, the less she became convinced of them.

Gilbert, meanwhile, never said anything he didn’t mean, even that first dread time of _Carrots. _Whether in joke or jest, earnest and thoughtful or charming and playful, or occasionally wretched and hurt, he always told the truth as he saw it. Sometimes – many a time – the truth had been painful; particularly, recently, for both of them. For Anne, whose idea of _truth_, particularly in her younger days, had been rather more fluid and fanciful, Gilbert had remained steady and stalwart and sure… a straight arrow of goodness faithfully aimed at the ever-moving target of her heart.

So now, he had gifted her a compliment that throbbed from his every earnest pore, and she hugged it to her, even as she sought to repay in kind. He himself looked handsome beyond measure, with the cut of his dark suit emphasising his regained impressive physique, and his mobile features – inviting lips and roguish eyes and darling dimple and splendid chin and captivating curls - trained on hers. What could she say to him in return? Nothing would properly suffice. _Irresistibly handsome? Dark and dashing? Amazingly attractive? _

“Thank you, Gil,” she uttered at last. “And you look wonderfully debonair.”

It wasn’t as gushing a sentiment as she could have offered or that he deserved, but Gilbert’s cheeks flushed slightly all the same.

“That’s very kind of you. It’s a beautiful dress, Anne. I didn’t get a chance to say so when you first wore it.”

“At… Redmond? You remember?”

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry that… it isn’t new,” Anne faltered.

“It’s new, tonight, for _me_,” he remarked winningly, and they shared a soft smile.

Their curious audience was drinking in this spectacle, and on her periphery she could see Rachel give a very eyebrow-raising glance to Marilla, who thankfully remained impassive, though the coded conjecture made Anne feel decidedly uncomfortable. Gilbert sensed her uneasiness, attempting to usher her out amidst Davy’s myriad questions about the buffet dinner on offer, whilst Dora quietly entreated her to note how the ladies wore their hair and Rachel gave loud and enthusiastic reminder to watch for the unevenness of the road. As Anne donned her wrap and long white gloves, she gave all a wave and Marilla a kiss goodnight, who in turn gave gentle instruction to have a lovely evening, with a glance over Anne’s shoulder to Gilbert for good measure.

Gilbert wasted no time in assisting her into the buggy and they were away; down the long approach to the house and passing the Haunted Wood before either of them dared draw breath again.

“It’d be easier to escape from the penitentiary,” Gilbert chuckled, shaking his head fondly.

“It would probably be quicker,” Anne replied, smiling.

“I don’t know how you ever got anything done there, Anne, all these years. Coursework, exam marking, anything.”

“My fondness for trees isn’t just inspired by nature,” she answered wryly. “And I recall suggesting we go on a great many walks.”

“Ah, so it was just to _avoid _company, and not _seek_ _mine,” _Gilbert lamented dramatically. “I feel so let down.”

“If it’s any consolation, I liked you at least as much as the landscape,” she gave a coy smile.

His chuckle was longer and dreadfully amused, as if enjoying seeing her so light hearted. Anne felt his laugh reverberate through her, and it was marvellous to see how _he, _too, seemed transformed by the promise of the evening. The betwixt-time of twilight enveloped their surroundings in a soft dim blanket that encouraged an easy intimacy, and Anne was dreadfully aware of the close confines of them together in the buggy; of the swaying motion that had her colliding with the length of his disconcertingly firm thigh; of his strong, handsome profile when not turning his face towards her; of his large, capable hands directing the horse. And up this close, too, the clean, inviting scent of him; the large, reassuring bulk of him; the _completeness _she felt when she was with him, as if he alone could make whole that which she hadn’t even known was so brittle and fractured.

“Mrs Lynde shouldn’t worry about us getting there in one piece,” Gilbert announced after a time. “I know this road as well as the Birch Path or Lover’s Lane.”

“You definitely travelled it often enough when we were teaching,” Anne agreed.

“I would almost fly back here of a Friday afternoon. I think ironically the highlight of my week there was the leaving of it.”

“Perhaps not _exactly _the sort of memory you want to recall with those on the school board tonight,” Anne laughed.

“Ah, no… perhaps not!”

“It _was_ awfully good of you to come home so often,” Anne offered suddenly, wistfully, face upturned to his. “So many times I went to race across to your farm to ask you about this or that, only to remember as I was almost out the door that you were so far away.”

“It sounds like you spent some time pining for me,” Gilbert gave smug retort, turning towards her in turn, eyebrow cocked in challenge.

“Oh, you would have liked that, Gilbert Blythe, wouldn’t you?” Anne scoffed merrily, and then, because it was the truth, and she was endeavouring to meet him at his own game, “maybe. A teeniest smidgeon, on a very rare occasion.”

He grinned widely at this hardly effusive concession, holding her gaze. “Maybe, perhaps, on the _very rare occasion _as I was hightailing it back to Avonlea, Miss Shirley, it was with your lovely face in my mind, calling me home.”

Anne was extremely relieved that the coming darkness hid her blush.

“I’m sure you had many friends in White Sands who would have asked you to stay of a weekend,” she demurred.

“I did,” he mused, matter-of-factly, the knowledge a surprise to her, though it really shouldn’t have been. The White Sands set was long reputed to be a _fast _one, and Gilbert was liked and admired wherever he went. If Redmond had fallen so easily to his charms in the early years, she couldn’t see how anyone in White Sands would have been immune.

This was an unpleasant realisation, but once admitting the thought she couldn’t brush it aside.

“Was there anyone in particular who may have wished you not to travel home of a weekend?” she asked a mite too obviously, cringing internally at her lack of tact.

It seemed Gilbert wanted to smile again, but his eyes were serious. “Even if there had been, Anne, I was where I wanted to be, with those whom I most wanted to be _with.”_

She gave a sweet smile at this, finally mollified.

They continued on companionably, Gilbert asking her about the school at Summerside and her duties there, and talking amusedly of the list of flunkies needing to be impressed and the rather long number of social engagements the Cooper Prize board had sent him, at which his _attendance was kindly requested. _His very best suit – the one he was currently filling out so nicely – would get a very regular airing, at this rate. Anne refused to dwell any longer on the likely ladies who might accompany him on such occasions, putting an almost-protective palm over the enamel heart, in the way she would always absentmindedly twist her strand of pearls. It drew Gilbert’s attention again, and he cleared his throat carefully before speaking.

“I… I’m thrilled you wore the necklace tonight, Anne. It means a lot to me.”

There was something in the rich timbre of his voice that had grown smoky and dark, and it elicited a very strange sensation in the pit of her belly.

“It’s… very beautiful, and was such a sweet gift, Gil,” she breathed carefully through her answer. “It’s wonderful to be able to wear it at last.”

He stared back at the road to White Sands for long moments, fighting his frown.

“You were uncomfortable at the thought of wearing it when we were… not close friends?”

“Oh, no, Gil, that’s not it! I… I… thought to wear it to the dance after Convocation,” she blurted miserably.

“The _dance?_” his brows rose to his hairline. “I never saw you wear it at the dance.”

“_No one_ did…” she sighed. “I… I… the chain broke. This one I’m wearing is borrowed from Dora.”

“I see…” he took a breath. “I’m so relieved at that, Anne. It just didn’t look quite the same to me… I thought the chain had been finer, maybe shorter, for the heart to sit at the hollow of your throat… ah, that is… I’m terribly sorry it broke on you. Maybe the chain was _too _fine and – “

“No, Gilbert!” she interrupted, feeling wretched. “It wasn’t you… it was _me. _I was too rough with it… probably in a hurry and…” she couldn’t bear to dig herself further into her pit of lies, and the shame flared in her. “I’m sorry.”

“Goodness, don’t be sorry, Anne!” he reached to take her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “I’ll get the chain fixed for you. And in the meantime, I’m happy to know you wear it, and that your heart is safe.”

Her heart was _ever _safe where he was concerned, real or decorative, she realised with a pang. She squeezed back, struggling for a smile. Her hand, too, remained safe in his, all the rest of the way to White Sands.

** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Anne of the Island (Ch 26)


	10. Longing (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dearest Darlingest Readers
> 
> I am ashamed at how many months have passed since I last posted here- and to leave you in the lurch regarding the rest of Anne and Gilbert's evening too! I offer sincere apologies, and not one but two chapters in my attempt to make amends.  
Thank you to everyone who has continued to read, and special thanks to those who have left kudos or commented so kindly.  
Since I last updated the world has changed irrevocably. Wherever you are, I hope that you are well and coping. From my own little Australian bunker I am giving the world a wave x
> 
> With love  
MrsVonTrapp x

* * *

**_Gilbert_ **

* * *

** **

The handsome and stately White Sands Hotel was already thronging with those attending the night’s festivities by the time of their own arrival. The local residents loved nothing more than putting on a fine show, and the hotel itself, known throughout this part of the Island by reputation if not experience, was obviously still up to the attention. Gilbert flashed his invitation at the main door and they were directed past tables laden with photographs and memorabilia through to the grand ballroom. It was merrily festooned with bunting and streamers in the soft hues of summer, drawing the eye towards the shining centrepiece; the famed crystal chandelier, suspended from the ceiling as of a glittering orb descended from heaven.

Gilbert had attended an occasional gathering here in his two years teaching locally, though nothing stuck in his memory so much as the benefit concert at the hotel in the wake of Queen’s pass list. He had watched, rapt and adoring, as the young lady now on his arm and looking about excitedly with shining emerald eyes had stood against the palms on the stage of the adjoining concert hall, all _slender white form and spiritual face. _* He had spent an unhappy drive over with Josie Pye, who had kept up a steady stream of barbed comments along the lines of Anne’s audacity in accepting the invitation to recite, and she was certain to be thoroughly outclassed by the professionals present and bring shame and embarrassment upon the whole of the Avonlea populace as a result. And he remembered that dread moment when Anne had stood, tremulous and terrified, before her eyes met his and something seemed to snap inside her, and she flung back her head in her characteristic way and thus paced towards yet another triumph. At the splendour on show she seemed to gulp and then do the same now, and he grinned down at her, unable to resist resurrecting the memory.

“You conducted that same move before your recitation here, Anne,” he ventured, enjoying too much the way her slim white hand tightly clutched the crook of his arm for support. “The Shirley Haughty Head Toss. I came to know it well.”

Where once she may have scowled at the slight, now she smiled amusedly.

“Oh, Gil! How did you know I was thinking of that old concert? I was so nervous. I felt I would faint and fall backwards into the foliage.”

His smiling eyes found hers. “Well, _that _would have been a dramatic accompaniment to your poem.

_‘I’ve made a vow, I’ll keep it true,_

_I’ll never married be;_

_For the only ane that I think on_

_Will never think o’ me.’ _ ** Cue, swoon.”

He realised a beat too late in the sight of her warming cheeks how prophetic the long-ago words actually were, and tried to make light of the subject quickly.

“It was certainly a _tragical _selection, in any case, Anne, most befitting of anyone with an affinity for Elaine of Astolat.”

Her perfect nose wrinkled up at him at the tease.

“And _you _are one to talk, Mr _Bingen on the Rhine _Blythe! That wasn’t a sad and pathetic choice at all!”

Now his own cheeks colored at her perfect parry, and his heart thundered at the memory as powerfully as it had all those years ago, when his youthful ardour found frustrated expression in fairly shouting out _there’s another, NOT a sister _*** and staring down at her passionately for good measure, only to be met with averted eyes and frosty indifference. Or _had _she been indifferent?

“I thought you took up a book and refused to listen to me?” he countered carefully, dark brow arching.

“I might have remembered a line or two…” she murmured, blushing guiltily to his slow smile.

“Well, Miss Shirley, what say we remember our vow for this evening? You owe me an entire dance card of dances, as I recall.”

“Except the one,” she gave a shining smile to him, eyes dazzling.

“Except the one,” he echoed throatily, his hand again finding the comfort of hers.

* * *

**_Anne_ **

* * *

** **

Anne had lost count of the number of times they were waylaid by the denizens of White Sands that evening, and admired Gilbert’s forbearance in dealing so charmingly with bombastic school board members, pushy matrons and milling former students alike, as much as she was gratified by the way he drew her close with every new exchange of greeting, the heat of his hand coming to rest at her waist making her breath catch every time. Even whilst humbly accepting plaudits for his Cooper Prize award, news of which had reached the town they knew not how, he never failed to remind all and sundry that his erstwhile date was also a new BA and former schoolmarm at Avonlea, soon to be principal of Summerside High, had originally been offered a place at the White Sands schoolhouse herself. His pride in her own achievements stuck her anew, and she realised how she had taken his support of her own ambitions for granted all these years, and how much she had subjugated her own interests and desires, and even talk of her writing, when faced with Roy’s polite but tepid response.

Clearly, however, Gilbert’s patience was more thoroughly tested by the entreaties for him to dance with every female in proximity but herself, and every time he begged off, protesting he couldn’t possibly abandon his date, pointing out a certain full dance card for good measure, there materialised an obliging man, young, old and everything inbetween, to take his place. Certainly it was no holds barred here at White Sands. She nearly laughed aloud at his excessive eye rolls in her direction over the shoulders of his partners, and his handsome countenance, ever-darkening in displeasure, would have diverted her greatly except she felt much of his annoyance for herself. They had only managed two dances together before the break for supper; a lively polka and a stately quadrille, and neither had given them the opportunity for the quiet moment they both seemed to long for.

_“Rescue me, Miss Shirley!” _his honeyed baritone breathed in her ear as she applauded the end of the band’s first set.

“All means of escape are blocked, Mr Blythe!” she gave impassioned stage whisper, her darting glance having already taken in the available exits, now commandeered by half the townsfolk, most of whom they had already encountered.

“Ah, but I have insider knowledge, you know,” he grinned unrepentantly. “Take a plate and a glass of punch, Anne-girl, and follow me. And _don’t stop _for anyone!”

Anne followed suit, nearly tripping over her long skirt in her haste, and barely avoiding a collision with an excitable young man pontificating to an unimpressed girl who turned to look at Gilbert passing with barely disguised interest. It fascinated Anne that he did not seem to quite understand the admiration he generated, nor the daggered looks of jealousy directed at her as his date for the evening. Gilbert led them out of the ballroom and to the left, which she knew housed the hall, with the famed dining room on the other side of the lower floor. It was dark in the room now, but the door had been left unlocked, and incredulous, Anne was ushered inside, to see rows of chairs set out for the next event, and more than enough light coming through the large windows, looking out onto the gardens from the verandah shared with the ballroom. Indeed they could hear the faint strains of the violinist employed during the band’s recess, but to all intents and purposes they were intriguingly, enticingly alone.

Gilbert gestured to the chairs with a theatrical flourish, and then dragged over a little side table from near the stage on which to prop their refreshments.

“What would you have done if it was locked?” Anne asked, impressed.

“Hoisted you through the window, of course,” he chuckled, and then flopped down on the chair next to her with exaggerated relief. “Ah… _that’s _better!”

Anne watched as he took out his hankerchief to pat the sheen at his brow.

“Gil – are you sure you’re alright? You’re not overdoing it?”

“I’m perfectly _fine, _Anne,” his eyes flashed at her fussing. “Just _frustrated. _And _famished.”_

“The famished I can understand, but the frustrated?”

He turned to her, his voice lowering a touch suggestively. “Frustrated not to be spending enough time with _you, _Anne,” he explained, expelling a long breath. “It’s not quite how I envisioned this evening… or completely what I promised.” He held her gaze for several beats, and she felt her cheeks flare, the heat lighting her throat all the way down to her pink enamel heart. “I underestimated your fatal allure, of course.”

“I think you rather underestimated your _own, _Gilbert,” she tried to laugh, but the sound was a shaky quiver. “And I am having a lovely evening. _More_ than lovely.”

“I’m glad,” he seemed to allow himself a smile.

“Though I _do _feel like I’m rather an impediment to your adoring public getting their hands on you.”

He gave disaffected growl. “You are not impediment, Anne, you are clearly _protection._ You are the only thing standing between me and the marauding hordes.”

She gave a more confident, tinkling laugh in reply. “And how am I meant to do that, Gil? Those matrons and misses are vicious. You should see the looks I’ve been getting!”

His smile was characteristically smug. “Then we have no choice but to barricade ourselves in here, for the foreseeable future. Think you could put up with me for such an extended period?”

_I’d put up with you forever… _the thought almost burst out of her. Infact she perhaps had inadvertently opened her mouth to speak it, because his gaze dropped to her lips in anticipation, but then he rescued her with an insistence that they eat while they had the chance, and employed themselves thoroughly to that end.

He ate with gusto, she was pleased to note, whilst keeping up a steady stream of amusing asides about his dance partners thus far, working assiduously to make her laugh as he always had done. How she had missed his rich vein of wry humour. Roy could never see a joke the way that Gilbert could, and it wasn’t his fault of course… but then, Christine didn’t seem the sort of girl to revert to silliness either, and that suddenly made her sad, because something essential would be lost about Gilbert if he couldn’t poke and prod now and again, and invite you to do the same in return.

“Ah, Anne… I had you in the palm of my hand there, and now I’ve just lost you… what were you thinking, just now?”

“How I’ve missed this. Us joking together,” she answered baldly.

He seemed startled by the admission, and his eyes darkened as he processed it.

“I have, too, Anne-girl,” he replied quietly.

She tried her best to meet his smoky gaze, but found herself unable to hold his thoughtful look for long, particularly when he took her hand again and cradled it between his large ones.

“Anne, I – “ he began, and then was startled by the romantic lull of the fiddler replaced by the band tuning up ahead of their next set.

Her eyes snapped back to his, and saw such longing there she was this time unable to pull away. She waited, breathless, for him to finish his thought, but he shook his curly head as if to clear it, and gave her a crooked half smile.

“Do we risk the _hordes _after all, Miss Shirley?” he asked.

She nodded slowly, watching as Gilbert repositioned their table and stacked their dishes for some surprised staff member to discover in the morning. Otherwise all remained undisturbed, including the stage, and she gave it a smile as of an old friend before taking her dance card to scan it idly.

“Ready for an encore, then?” Gilbert had stepped up onto the stage himself now, and he accompanied his question with a cheeky grin and arms spread wide in challenge.

“Yes…” she said slowly, her mouth dry. “But not… for poetry.”

He looked at her quizzically, his lips paused in a half smile.

“What is it, Anne?” he jumped down nimbly at the uneasy expression on her face.

“It’s just that the first dance of the next set… it’s a waltz, Gil.” She swallowed, the blood beginning to thunder in her head. “It’s… _our _waltz.”

She meant their aborted waltz from the dance after Convocation, of course; the one she had denied him, in a move that was shameful in its petulance and pettiness, and something that still burned her cheeks to remember. They burned now, particularly as the beginnings of the same music as that other time sounded faintly through the walls to them, and the range of emotions that passed fleetingly across his face might haunt her forever.

“_Our _waltz, then,” he finally smiled, his deep voice grown gravelly, and in two long strides he was before her, giving her a look of such new intensity she felt it in her marrow. There was none of the boyish lightheartedness of moments ago; infact there was no trace of the boy at all. Just Gilbert, as the man he was; tall and lean and strong and broad and dark and thankfully without a trace of the brooding melancholy she had once so desired, and which had no relationship with _real _desire itself.

“Will you do me the honour, Anne?” he asked, voice remarkably composed, extending his hand.

“Y-yes thank you, Gilbert,” she heard herself reply, thinking that now was most definitely not the time to consider a swoon.

* * *

**_Gilbert_ **

* * *

** **

In all his days thereafter, grown so much more precious after the prospect of nearly losing them, he knew he would forever remember their dance, as a perfect moment filed away and safeguarded in his mind. Her beautiful face raised to his; of rosy cheeks and green dancing eyes, and pink lips parted as if perpetually seeking a breath. She stared up at him as she had lately begun to, with that lovely combination of awe and ardour and an awakened awareness of him, reinforced in the way her body trembled at his nearness, as they glided and twirled across the floor in sublime synchronicity.

He remembered little else about the evening, except he danced with her and she danced with him and the times they were not dancing with one another their eyes clung, and the longing to have her in his arms again was a fever of an entirely different kind. At some stage people began to disperse and they followed suit, and he was sure he said and did the right things but was quite insensible of the details, for he felt nothing but her small shudder as he helped her with her wrap and his fingers lingered long on her shoulders, and the urge to press his lips to the pulse at the back of her ear was a yearning both startling and sensational.

There might have been a moon or no moon on the long way back from White Sands but he couldn’t remember and didn’t care anyway. There was only the steady-stepping horse and the swaying of the buggy and the gravitational pull that made Anne finally give up and with a small sigh, settle herself into his side, and if his free arm came around her waist to hold her close there was no one to herald the impropriety of it, and they could go hang if they did.

Too soon they were to the gate of Green Gables, and then up the long drive, and to the house shrouded in darkness, but for the one light at the front door. All else was shadows and secrets and shared soft smiles.

“Do you think this is _scandalously late _enough to arrive home?” Anne offered with a knowing smirk.

“I certainly hope so,” he grinned, trying not to be distracted by the luminous look of her, or the way the enamel heart seemed to wink at him from against the satin sheen of skin between throat and breast.

There was a long pause, then, neither awkward nor uncomfortable, but merely settling itself between them, as they hesitated to say goodbye.

“Here, Gil,” Anne said suddenly, and then reached up to pluck something from his hair, fingers lingering infintisimally before withdrawing. She held up a green leaf for his inspection.

“Oh, dear,” he laughed. “_Please_ say that got stuck there on the way back and not the way over!”

“I can’t rightly recall…” she teased airily.

“Any excuse to run your fingers through my hair again, Miss Shirley.”

“That hair cut was a public service, Mr Blythe. They may not have let you in tonight, otherwise.”

“Now, _that _would have been a great shame. I don’t know _what _we would have done… otherwise.”

She bit back her grin, and he bit back any more such audacious retorts, too nervous now to act properly around her, it seemed. There needed to be a goodbye between them, and soon, or various members of the household would surely come to investigate his malingering on their doorstep at all hours. He took a long, quiet breath, composing himself, but the question continued to beat at him.

_Should he kiss her?_

It was clearly not a question of wanting to. It was even not a question of opportunity to. The _rightness _of it was the question.

Would Anne welcome it?

He could offer no promise to her at this moment. He had yet to see Marilla, and he had no ring, and this wasn’t the time or place to procure a proposal, with Mrs Lynde’s face about to appear in the kitchen window at any moment, and the moths beginning to circle around them in affront.

A _kiss, _however… a first kiss… would be the perfect end to the evening. And yet…

The more he dithered, the more their companionable silence became uneasy.

“Anne – “

“Gil – “

“Sorry, Anne. Ladies first.”

She contemplated him with an expression at once wistful and wondering.

“Thank you, Gil, so very much. For tonight. I had a truly wonderful time. I’ll treasure the memory of it, always.”

“Thank _you, _Anne…” the words caught in his throat. How to express what tonight had meant, for _him? _And dare he say it – for _them? _“I’ll treasure it, likewise, I promise you.”

Her smile at that was both exultation and invitation, and it trapped the breath in his chest; lodged somewhere under his diaphragm, slicing sharply.

If he… if he were to… to bend his head, and to just…

There was a clatter from inside the house, and the noise echoed like thunder in the stillness. They both jumped as scalded cats, and might have laughed through the moment, but for the dread realisation of what that noise meant, and whom it might unexpectedly herald.

Anne whipped her head towards the house and then back to him.

“Goodnight, Gil!” she squeaked, and then he felt soft lips on his cheek; a darting brush of butterfly wings, resting for a second and then fluttering off.

She was through the door and had it closed behind her before he barely knew what had happened.

_Well, _he gulped to himself, putting a palm to his cheek as any blushing schoolboy, _trust the girl with the slate to sort him out._

And like the time, years and years ago, when he was forgiven that long-lamented transgression, he felt _all of heaven opened before _him. ****

Grinning, marvelling, he stumbled down the steps and towards the buggy, silently saluting the house and all its occupants, eyes lingering on movement of the curtain at the window of a certain little east gable room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And having ended on a canon quotation, it is now time to return to canon… with many additional and augmented scenes! There is still quite a way to go in this story, I’m delighted to say, but not so very long before certain events have a familiar feel…
> 
> *Anne of Green Gables (Ch 33)
> 
> **Carolina Oliphant, Baroness Nairne 'The Maiden’s Vow', noted as the poem Anne recites (though I have a fondness for the Sullivan series choosing The Highwayman!)
> 
> ***from Bingen on the Rhine by Caroline Elizabeth Norton. 
> 
> ****Anne’s House of Dreams (Ch 3)


	11. Leaping

* * *

**_Anne_ **

* * *

** **

“Anne Shirley, what is the meaning of this?” Marilla asked, as exasperated now as she had been over any number of Anne’s youthful exploits, from green hair to drowned mice. “We’ll want to be leaving in ten minutes!”

“Marilla! I can’t go to church today!” Anne wailed as if she might still be a woebegone pre-pubescent. “I’m sure I could pray as expertly here. I might indeed need the intervention.”

“For mercy’s sake, Anne! I fear I have one of my headaches coming on! I am relying on you to help Rachel with the twins!”

“Oh, they’ll be good as gold,” Anne dismissed. “But you’ll need someone to stay and look after you then, Marilla,” Anne offered hopefully. “You might need tending to.”

“If Anne can say home then can I?” Davy ducked his flaxen head in the door, but was promptly shooed off by Rachel Lynde, come to see what all the fuss and delay was about. Davy was directed downstairs to help assist the hired man with the horse and buggy, which left Marilla and Rachel in the doorway to Anne’s room, bothered and bewildered alternatively.

“Well, of course this comes from staying out with Gilbert Blythe till all hours,” Rachel huffed knowingly, as only the mother of ten children had leave to do. “No wonder you look peaky this morning, Anne. Though if Gilbert makes it to church himself having the doctor’s full clearance now, I very much doubt he’d care if you had a bag stuck over your head.”

“I can’t face Gilbert!” Anne quailed, shaking her currently unencumbered head furiously for emphasis. “Considering I made such a terrible idiot of myself!”

“Nonsense!” Rachel interjected. “Things looked perfectly fine last night when he dropped – I mean collected you - for the dance. _More _than fine!”

“Did you quarrel?” Marilla interrupted anxiously.

“No! Nothing of the sort! It was a magical evening, just delightful! And then I had to ruin it, with… with... some schoolgirl impulsivity!” Anne reddened magnificently, large grey eyes silently imploring Marilla with the unspoken language of a decade of growing understanding, and the last few weeks of a touching shared sympathy.

A fleeting look of panic passed Marilla Cuthbert’s lined face, softened now by the years spent in the loving, often unpredictable presence of this girl. She whispered fervently to Rachel Lynde beside her, whose eyes grew rounder with each word, before that redoubtable lady hustled out to move along the twins, giving Anne a firm nod and a reminder of time marching as she did.

“Marilla…” Anne faltered.

“Now, Anne,” Marilla found herself rubbing at her temples, fearing a headache _would _come on now all the same. “Really, what is all this stuff and nonsense? You know you must go to church. It’s a terrible message to send the twins if you refuse to go on a whim.”

Marilla settled herself carefully on the bed beside Anne, who sat up with a sigh to make room for her.

“I don’t mean to be childish, Marilla,” she admitted, low-voiced. “I’ve just embarrassed myself again, that’s all, and don’t know how I might face him.”

“Gilbert? What terrible crime have you committed now?”

“I… I… _kissed _him!” Anne admitted in dread tones, flushing anew profusely.

Marilla blinked blue eyes rapidly. “Is that all?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

“Oh, the pair of you, honestly…” Marilla looked like she might well chuckle, or at the very least smirk.

“Marilla! You don’t understand! It was a terrible gaffe, and I’ve made such a fool of myself!”

“I hardly think Gilbert will think so. And _what _makes you think I wouldn’t _understand?_” those thin lips quirked at the corners, and she gave an eyebrow raise to boot. “You forget I was once courted by a Blythe myself, Anne Shirley.”

Anne looked like she wanted to refute the idea of _courting, _in relation to Gilbert, but was clearly too accosted by the idea of young Marilla kissing John Blythe.

“Mr Blythe?” Anne’s grey eyes were agog. “_K-kissing?”_

“Frequently,” Marilla offered unrepentantly, with something of a gleam in her eye. “And often _amorously_. So if Gilbert is anything like his father, then – “

“Gilbert hasn’t kissed _me, _Marilla! That’s just the point! I thought he might, but he… we… well, then, I kissed _him_. A peck really. On the cheek. Well, not even a _peck,_ more like – “

“Anne! For goodness’ sake! You’re fretting over a kiss on the cheek?”

Anne was speechlessly abashed.

“Well, he might be John’s son, but he has more than enough of Ella in him, obviously,” Marilla remarked with exasperated huff. “Both of you have always overthought things, worrying them from every possible angle. Rachel would say it comes of having too many brains and too little common sense. And none of this is helping you get to church on time. What message will _that _send to the Blythes?”

“Do you think Gil will be there? I’d much rather see him privately than in a crowd with everyone looking on…”

Marilla’s expression became shuttered. “Anne, whether he is there today or not is _his_ concern, not your own. We need you to please remember your responsibilities, come down this instant and accompany your family to church.”

“Yes, Marilla,” Anne acquiesced, shamefacedly, not daring to provoke further stern reaction. She shimmied off the bed and stood forlornly by the glass in a way that would make Davy impressed, straightened her skirt and blouse, and took a hat from the stand, pinning it in place unseeingly. “I hope you have a good rest while we are away.”

_“Rest is unlikely…”_ Marilla muttered under her breath, watching her beloved girl troop despondently down the stairs she had fairly glided down the previous evening. “_But I need you _away,_ love, at any rate.”_

Marilla Cuthbert did not draw breath again until Anne was safely in the buggy, wedged between Rachel and Dora, Davy directing their horse at a firm trot towards town.

* * *

** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

** **

John Blythe thumped downstairs to the now-familiar sights and smells of his wife plying their son with a full cooked breakfast, though there would hardly be enough time to digest the generous helpings on hand before they did it all again for their midday meal.

“Am I to be saved any?” he chuckled, as Ella beamed and their boy dreamed at the table, having paused over his eggs mid-forkful to relive some magical memory of the previous night that had him staring into space, a small smile playing about his lips. John and Ella gave fond perusal to this distracted figure, with a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head respectively, and he lost no time in planting a passionate kiss on his wife’s waiting lips, having some memories of his own to reflect upon whilst Gilbert had spent a long evening away at White Sands.

“And so, son, are you off with us to church today? There’s so many been asking after you. I can scarcely walk down the main street in less than a quarter hour at the moment for being stopped by a Sloane or a Bell or an Andrews.”

Gilbert snapped out of his reverie, hazel eyes flicking from his father seating himself opposite, to his mother refilling his tea.

“I hoped to visit Diana and the baby, now that Dr Spencer gave me the official all clear…” Gilbert hedged, mind whirring almost visibly. “And I… planned… to see Miss Cuthbert, this morning. She herself promised she was going to stay behind from the service.”

John and Ella exchanged a loaded look, and the latter retraced her steps to deposit the kettle back on the range.

“Anything you need to tell us, Gil?” John questioned carefully.

The flush found Gilbert, though his look was reassuringly wry. “Nothing yet.”

“You mean to ask Marilla’s blessing?” Ella Blythe found her voice.

“Yes…” Gilbert paused. “Although… I would like to know I have yours, first.”

The question was directed at his mother, and they all knew it.

Ella Blythe looked again to her husband, who gave her an encouraging nod and then upped and rounded the table, clapping his son on the back, and nearly dislodging Gilbert’s current mouthful in the process.

“Of course you have our blessing, you great lump!”

“Thanks, Dad,” Gilbert coughed into his napkin, recovering his breath to smile, which faded as he observed his mother carry herself upstairs. His bewildered hazel eyes shot to his father, reseating himself and buttering his toast in nonplussed fashion, and his own breakfast now churned inside his stomach. If his mother was still somehow disappointed in Anne and couldn’t forgive what she saw as past transgressions, could he really have a future with her? Could he face the fight to claim one woman he loved whilst upsetting and alienating the other?

“Dad…” Gilbert faltered. “Ma. Is she…?”

A light, firm tread on the stairs signalled her return, and Gilbert watched his mother come back towards him, his heart fluttering trepidatiously. She carried both her hat for church and a small box, and she deposited both on the table before seating herself between the men in her life. John Blythe took a gulp of tea, grabbed at a slice of buttered toast and muttered about seeing to the horse, giving his wife a quick squeeze on the shoulder and his son a wink before exiting stage left. Gilbert swung his attention back to his mother, trying to decipher the firm, resolute look she wore on her still-fine features, which had reclaimed their gentle beauty in the weeks following his recovery.

“Ma…” Gilbert set his plate aside, prepared if needed to fight his corner. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about – “

“Gilbert John Blythe!” Ella interrupted impatiently. “There really isn’t the time for you to state your case regarding Anne, though I’m sure you would articulate it passionately, and love, knowing you, even _reasonably…_” her look gave way to indulgent smile, which turned wry as she saw how her son was wrong-footed. “I know you love her, Gilbert. And for what it’s worth, and goodness only knows she’s taken her sweet time about it, I believe she loves you, too.”

There were few occasions in life where Ella Blythe had wanted to stop time, but the look of utter astonishment on her darling son’s handsome visage was one she would have delighted to linger on.

“Ma… I… I…” Gilbert interjected with inarticulate splutter, which rather put paid to the previous assertion.

“Gilbert, if you’ll do me the courtesy, love, to please just wait until I’ve finished. I need to say my piece, and then I will never speak of it again.”

Gilbert swallowed slowly. “Alright, Ma.”

Ella took a breath, and then a long sip of tea.

“I didn’t think I would ever forgive Anne Shirley for refusing you…” Ella began with a painful directness that made Gilbert wince involuntarily. “I couldn’t believe that after all you had shared – and let’s face it, all you had done for her – that she could be so foolish as to not see what was right in front of her, and what everyone else – including Marilla and Rachel Lynde, I’ll have you know – could see as plain as day. That you were a match for one another, and a rare one at that.”

Ella paused, and Gilbert felt a tremble pass through him. He had to grip his own tea with tight fingers to remind himself not to speak.

“So when the whispers of conjecture started to reach us…” his mother continued quietly, “I dismissed them as idle talk. What would anyone know about it, ahead of we ourselves? But you never spoke of it, and came home so down, and then we knew.

I was furious, and desperately heartbroken for you, love, and I was, quite honestly, rather sorry for myself. I had embraced Anne, too. I could remember her more times than I could count seated with you at this very table, your heads bent together, setting the world to rights. I liked her fire and her spirit; it kept you on your toes. I never wanted some simpering miss for you, but someone who would be your equal, and a daughter I could love as well as my own…” At this she blinked back sudden tears, and Gilbert’s hand reached out to clutch hers.

“Ma, I…”

“Shush. Let me finish now or I never will. So… your father adored her, of course, and defended her to the hills, and that got my goat good and proper, because I was sure he was only defending her as Marilla’s girl. At any rate, I would have nothing to do with her, and froze her out whenever I might encounter her in the village, particularly when it seemed she was keeping company with some high and mighty Kingsport fellow. I’m not proud of that, Gilbert, but I must own to it. But I rationalised it didn’t matter, because you had all your wonderful plans; you would go on to become a fine doctor, and build a fine life for yourself, and you didn’t need her. Only, that was my mistake, of course, because you did. You always did. And you still do.”

There was a heavy silence, and Ella patted Gilbert’s hand before redirecting her own to her tea.

Gilbert found himself flushing. “Yes, Ma. You’re right. The last two years were terrible, for me. Not, in the end, because she said no… but because I spent those two years without Anne really being a part of them.”

Ella nodded, even as her son struggled with his next thought.

“Dad told me that I called for her, in… in my fever, and not for you. I’m sorry, Ma.”

Ella gave a wavering ghost of a smile in reply. “I could never blame you for that, darling. Shamefully… I think I blamed _her._”

Gilbert had suspected as much, but his bright hazel eyes – his mother’s eyes - still widened to hear it. Ella colored at her revelation.

“And _now?_” he pressed, his question a strangled sound.

“And now…” Ella sighed, before looking at him almost imploringly, “how could I blame the girl who needed a second chance, the way I was given? Who needs _you_ as much as you need _her?_ I saw her face that first morning after your fever had broken and you were out of danger, Gilbert. It was like… looking in a mirror, to my own pain and regret and desperation. No woman was going to have a look like _that _and not be in love with you.”

Ella paused, hazel eyes trained on the boy turned man who carried all the best of her and John in him.

“I hurt your father, Gilbert, when I said _no _the first time, and then I scorned Anne for doing what I had done, because it made me reconsider my own actions… I still don’t feel it was wrong to say no, for it wasn’t the right time, for your Dad and I… but I am ever grateful that I had another chance to say _yes. _And Anne deserves that chance, too.”

“Oh, Ma – thank you!” Gilbert launched himself at her, as he had done all those years ago on his return from Alberta, before he had remembered himself, nearly fourteen and beyond the outward need for hugs, if not quite the internal desire. But he was man enough to admit, now, the power and pleasure of an embrace, and his strong Blythe arms engulfed his mother with a need for it himself, as well as for her. Ella laughed joyously, for perhaps the first time since his return to them, or perhaps maybe really for the first time since she had snubbed Anne Shirley in the street, and then cried about it after.

“Well, look what happens the moment a man’s back is turned!” John came in through the back door, chuckling at the heartening sight of his wife and their son. “D’you think Anne’ll like it, then?”

“_Like it?_” Gilbert queried through a brilliant smile, extracting himself from their hug, his eyes as suspiciously moist as his mother’s.

“Oh, we hadn’t quite gotten to that part,” Ella laughed again, almost giddily, wiping at the corner of her eyes, and the sound made her husband’s heart stutter, in similar vein to the _second_ time he had asked her a certain question.

“Well, right, then,” John gave her a soft look that might have belonged to his son, lately, in contemplation of Anne. “In your own time, love. Though I’d be grateful for some eggs of my own while I’m waiting in anticipation.”

Ella heaped a mountainous serving onto his plate, planting a kiss at his handsome, weathered brow for good measure, and then turned back to Gilbert, handing over the box.

“Here, darling, from both of us. It was my mother’s. We won’t have you going empty-handed to Anne. And we won’t have you using all your savings, either. Take it directly to her, if you think she’ll like it, or go up to Charlottetown and use it to buy her something different. Do either with our love. _And _our blessing.”

Incredulous, Gilbert opened the small box, and inside it a smaller one still, of navy velvet, its casing slightly worn with time and age, and the creak as he prised the lid open reminded him, appropriately enough he was to find, of an oyster, reluctant to give up its prize.

Inside, against a satin sapphire sea there sat a delicate gold band, upon which perched a perfect circlet of pearls; luminous as Anne’s complexion in the moonlight, and lovely in both its sheen and simplicity. Gilbert swallowed in awed admiration, dumbstruck and overcome. He had not allowed himself many thoughts as to rings; knowing vaguely of Anne’s disliking of diamonds (helpfully confirmed in Phil’s letter) he instead had ruminated on a ruby, meditated on a moonstone, and agonised over an emerald, but nothing felt like it _belonged _to her. _This _did.

“I know they say _pearls are for tears, _love,” his mother broke into his reverie, mistaking his silence for uncertainty, but – “

“No, Ma,” he replied fiercely, “it’s beautiful, and utterly perfect. If I know anything about Anne at all, it’s that she will love it, and how it came to her. I’m honoured to present it to her. Thank you. I can’t say thank you, enough, to you both. For this. For your support. For… everything.”

A single tear tracked Gilbert’s cheek, and then he chuckled wryly and joked about the prophesy coming true.

His parents embraced him either side, and they stood for a moment; a still-life of _family, _feeling on the cusp of that notion changing shape and definition for all of them.

“Well, Gil, you’d best be off to Marilla, then,” John reminded. “Good luck with that. I’ll say a prayer or two for you in church, then, shall I?” he gave cheeky wink, which earned him a dig in the ribs from his wife.

There was a scurry to clean up quickly before the Blythes parted; his parents to church, and Gilbert to Green Gables. His long strides took him there with new purpose; his pocket heavy with the ring as promise, and his parents’ well wishes carried with him as of a prayer.

* * *

Marilla Cuthbert met him at the door without ceremony.

“Gilbert! Welcome!” she smiled, in that way of hers which always seemed enigmatic, when directed at him.

“Thank you, Miss Cuthbert, sincerely, for seeing me.”

“Not at all. I have the tea ready. Please come on through.”

The plain kitchen table was nicely laid with the second-best china, and he was glad of that, not wanting Marilla to think of him, today of all days, as a stranger conducting a polite call, but almost as… family. His heart and stomach were too full to eat, though he would have shovelled in anything presented to him in an effort to please, but the tea was a welcome relief, both to his parched throat and as distraction from his mission. He made inane enquiries as to everyone’s health, and Marilla offered some perfunctory questions about the dance at White Sands, and then they both stalled, looking at the other expectantly.

In the silence even his jangling knee sounded as if a hammer.

“Miss Cuthbert, I want to begin first by offering you an apology,” he finally blurted.

“Apology?” those blue eyes widened.

“Yes. I am referring back to... that is to my… _conduct,_ two years ago. You see, and I’m sure that you did, in time… that I proposed. To Anne. During our second year at Redmond. She… she… well, she refused me, as she had every right to do. It was a genuine proposal, but somewhat… ill-considered, on my part, and certainly, on reflection, ill-timed. I’m very sorry you never heard of it directly, from me, or that I never communicated to you my intentions.”

“Gilbert…” Marilla’s face had softened, though there was something in that wide, slightly downturned mouth he couldn’t decipher. “You owe no apology, though I accept it willingly. It cannot have been an easy thing to go through. And the time… after,” she alluded, meaningfully.

“No, indeed,” he nodded, distance and more dire circumstances since enabling him to consider that time thoughtfully, now, and to take on board the lessons learned.

“With that in mind, Miss Cuthbert,” he cleared his throat, feeling as if his entire heart had stuffed itself down his oesophagus, “I would like to do things properly, this time. I must tell you that I love Anne. I love her with everything in me, and always have done, and I have reason to believe… that is, I have hope that her… feelings… are the same. Or that, more accurately, they have changed. And that my intention is to ask for her hand. And to ask… to ask… for your blessing.”

Gilbert had occasionally mused upon the circumstances around his father’s relationship with Marilla Cuthbert, and how he had once come to love her. Although Gilbert found her to be a worthy woman and wonderful in having adopted and raised Anne, earning his eternal gratitude, he had always puzzled a little at what his father had seen in her. It had always seemed a little unlikely. So he was wholly unprepared for his suit to be met with a golden smile that lit her lined face, transforming her features from cloud to sunbeam. In a moment she morphed from matriarch to maiden, clasping her hands together in unbridled joy; the stern shell fell away, and Gilbert glimpsed the merry girl she might have been, and finally understood.

“Gilbert! Oh, Gilbert – you don’t know how happy that news makes me!”

“Thank you, Miss Cuthbert!” he gave a delighted, relieved smile.

“And of course you have my blessing! You had it years ago. And Mrs Lynde would more than echo those sentiments. And certainly… Matthew.”

“Well, that means a great deal,” Gilbert paused momentarily to remember the kind, soft-spoken (and rarely-spoken) man Anne remembered so fondly. And _then _he remembered Mrs Lynde. “I wouldn’t wish, however, for any news of my intentions to pre-empt my asking Anne…” he worried.

“Not a bit of it. We will stay silent here until you’re ready.”

“Thank you. I am hoping to ask very soon, in the next day or so. Regrettably, we don’t have a lot of the summer left to us.”

“No, unfortunately not.”

“And I must assure you, Miss Cuthbert, that even though I have years of medical school ahead, I will never lose sight of my goal; to provide Anne with the very best I can offer at the end of it. I’ll strive to save for a comfortable home for us, and will secure the very best living I can.”

Again, that smile; fond and almost bemused at his earnestness, now. “I know you will. And so will Anne know it, too.”

Conscious of time and of the other residents due to return, Gilbert rose dazedly, not quite believing it had all gone so well.

“Of course, this is all supposing Anne says yes _this_ time,” he felt almost secure enough to joke about it now.

Marilla’s blue eyes magnificently twinkled, and her expression was very droll; lips pressed together as if stemming the tide of all sorts of revelations, lest they burst forth.

“I believe I have every faith in her, in this respect,” was all she would allow herself.

“Well, thank you so very much, Miss Cuthbert,” Gilbert shook her hand warmly. “I hope to see you again very soon.”

“And _you, _Gilbert Blythe,” Marilla Cuthbert saw off the tall, intelligent, striking young man. She noted the same firm, long-legged stride that had once quickened her heart, half a lifetime ago, and might have paused to muse on the peculiarity of Providence, only the dishes needed doing.

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

** **

“How are you, Marilla?” Anne rushed in, to see Marilla placidly finishing up at the kitchen sink. “Oh, you should have been resting, not working!”

“I’m fine, Anne. All the better for having a quiet morning, I expect.” Marilla saw an enquiring eyebrow arch upwards as she exchanged an unseen look with Rachel, and nodded her head once, making her long-time neighbour, now housemate, puff out her not inconsiderable bosom in unexpressed pleasure, though she could not contain a purse-lipped smile of Lynde smugness.

“What passage was the sermon taken from, Anne?” Marilla tried to divert attention. “I’d like to read back over it, later.”

“Oh, Marilla, I’m afraid I don’t remember…” Anne fussed with Dora’s apron in her distraction, directing Davy not to have his shoes on the clean floor and studiously avoiding the knowing gaze of the two older ladies.

“We were told Gilbert Blythe was not at church as he wanted to call on the young Wrights and see the baby,” Rachel explained, studied tone heavy with meaning.

“Well, then, all’s well, is it not, Anne?”

“I guess so…” she sighed. “The Blythes were certainly very nice and chatted for quite a few minutes this morning. Even Mrs Blythe,” Anne added in sombre tone.

“Will you go over to Diana’s yourself later, Anne?” Rachel prompted hopefully.

“I don’t think so… I have Alice’s wedding and I’ve no idea what to wear… and I owe a great many letters… I might just take everything downstairs here and sit in the sunlight for the afternoon…” Her dejected air made it an almost mournful proposition.

“And that way you won’t happen to miss any of your _own_ visitors…” Rachel nodded sagely, choosing to ignore Marilla’s exasperated look of warning.

* * *

** _Gilbert_ **

* * *

_“Gilbert!” _Diana Wright all but squeezed the life out of him in greeting, which was no small feat considering she also clutched a red-faced, fat little fellow in the crook of her arm. “You gave us the fright of our lives! Don’t _ever _do that again!”

“I won’t if I can help it. Hello, there, Diana, and congratulations. I’m sorry I couldn’t call earlier. I wanted to be completely sure it was safe for the baby.”

“Oh, Gil… we’ve so missed seeing you.” She only relinquished him in part, still clutching his hand in her soft one.

“And I’ve missed you, Di. You are looking wonderful!” The happy blush of motherhood had added further lustre to Diana’s rosy-cheeked loveliness.

That drew a dazzling smile. “Come and sit down and I’ll get the tea on.”

Gilbert followed her into the pleasantly appointed kitchen of Lone Willow Farm, watching her juggling baby Fred with the expertise innate, it seemed, to all new mothers, and would have managed everything well enough with one hand, only Gilbert gestured that he would take the infant, considering if he was actually going to greet them as they came into the world in the future he might as well get used to seeing them up close.

“Well, he’s lovely, Diana,” he felt leave to comment, thinking this a safe enough gambit on first appraisal. “And pretty healthy, from the weight of him. Well done to you.”

Diana glowed. “And well done to _you _as well, Gil. I have it on good authority you were skin and bones nigh on a month ago. I can’t believe how well you look now.”

“That’s good of you, Di. I was a ghastly sight, that’s for sure. I’m glad at least you were spared t_hat _much. Though it does, thankfully, all seem like a long time ago, now. So much has happened since.”

It was an innocent enough remark, meant to encompass Diana’s own dramatic change in circumstances as much as anything, but his old school friend, ever sharper than she was usually given credit for, raised a dark eyebrow in conjecture, her smile soft and knowing.

“Yes, it has…” she agreed, dark eyes raking over him.

Gilbert turned his attention back to the placid young man who had obviously inherited his father’s propensity for sleeping anywhere he lay his head; and from what he could observe, his looks as well as his name, which was obviously more of a mixed blessing.

“So who do you think he looks like?” Diana urged as she brought over the tea, and Gilbert hardly fancied being caught like a fly in the web of this seemingly casual question.

“Well, I find him very like his father…” he grinned the obvious, patting his rump through his swaddling, and then remembered Anne’s words, in a flash of inspiration, “but he seems like he has your mouth, Di.”

Diana beamed at this, offering a slice of cake for him in reward.

Fred came in not long after, to find the beautiful tableaux of his contented wife, happy son and healthy friend, seated in his own kitchen, and with full heart considered he wanted for nothing else in this world.

Except for possibly…

“Hey there, Gil!” Fred gave delighted, gentle greeting, having long accustomed his gruffer tones to their new domestic arrangements. “Glad you could make it over to see us. And I see young Fred approves.”

“It seems Gilbert’s a natural,” Diana grinned leadingly, lifting her face for her husband’s kiss.

“It sure does,” Fred smiled widely, taking his cue, and the pair of them turned to face him speculatively.

Gilbert rolled his eyes at their obviousness, feeling his ring burn a hole in his pocket. If he hinted so much as a snippet of his intentions in front of Diana he’d hardly have to worry about Mrs Lynde; Diana would have the news over to Green Gables in an instant, and if still unable to do it in person might just resort to signalling by candlelight as she and Anne had been wont to do when still schoolgirls.

“Well, he’s a fine little fellow…” Gilbert attempted his ruse, wondering aloud as to whether the young chap’s eye color would take after his father’s or darken as of his mother’s, but it seemed neither Wright was having it.

“How was the dance at White Sands, Gilbert?” Diana now pressed, taking baby Fred back so that Gilbert might gulp his tea, her boldness fortified by her husband’s presence.

“The dance was very pleasant, thank you,” Gilbert countered blandly.

“Do you have any plans to take Anne out again?” Diana asked in desperation.

“No immediate plans, thanks, Diana.” Gilbert grinned.

Diana all but scowled as Fred chuckled at his obtuse answers.

“What say we take a wander and I show you what we’ve done with the back fields?” Fred offered by way of rescue to his friend.

“Sounds good,” Gilbert nodded, snaffling his slice of cake and pausing at the door Fred had just come through to give Diana a cheeky, charming salute.

“I can’t believe I wore out my knees praying for you, Gilbert Blythe!” Diana called out after him in frustration.

* * *

“If you don’t give me some news, Gil, I’ll be made to pay for it later,” Fred shook his head, smiling in chagrin, the two men seated on twin hay bales, only having gotten as far as the other side of the barn.

“Will Diana send you to bed without any supper?” Gilbert smirked, but Fred’s grimace told a different story.

“A wife has _ways, _Gilbert, to winkle information out of you, believe me. When you’re a married man, you’ll know it.”

Gilbert’s smirk of smugness died a quick death. “How so?” he was almost afraid to ask.

“Well surely these past weeks you’ve gotten close enough to Anne to get a hint of it?” Fred raised an eyebrow.

Gilbert took a long time contemplating his hands. “We… that is, Anne and I… we haven’t started from the same place that you and Diana did, Fred. We’ve had to become friends again, first, and learn to trust and to communicate and…”

“… and worry things into next week,” Fred shook his head in despair. “Honestly, Gil, sometimes I don’t believe you were ever raised on a farm at all!”

Gilbert rolled his eyes. “You make me sound like a babe in the woods.”

“Nah. Just not quite knowing what you’re in for. You’re passionate and Anne’s passionate. Surely you’ve had a few interesting encounters already?”

Gilbert flushed. “Anne and I have _always _had _interesting encounters_.”

Fred’s perfectly plain face broke on its bemusement. “I am _not _talking debating at Redmond, you pillock.”

Gilbert blew out a frustrated breath. “What changed, for you and Di? When was the moment?”

Fred gave this weighty question due consideration. “I can pretty much pinpoint it to when I first kissed her.”

“And this was before or after you were engaged?”

Fred looked askance in his direction. “Gil, I haven’t your looks or charm or brains. Apart from my own blundering ardour and enthusiasm I hadn’t much else to recommend me. Of course it was _before. _I think she’d hardly have said _yes _otherwise!”

Gilbert gave a comical frown at this news.

“Then I really _am _in for it! I hope to do both at the same time!”

“You mean to tell me you have been in love with Anne for years, four of them with her in Kingsport, proposed to her once already, and spent the last month in her almost exclusive company, and you _still _haven’t kissed her?” Fred seemed suspiciously in tone and demeanour to be holding back a laugh.

“That’s about the size of it,” Gilbert sighed deeply.

Fred elbowed him in the ribs. “Good luck with it all then, Gil. You are in for a world of pleasure - _and _pain. And don’t worry about any great secret getting out. Diana would never believe any of it even if she _did _manage to get it out of me.”

* * *

** **

Gilbert parted from the Wrights; their domestic felicity causing a dull throb of longing in his chest. Would he and Anne enjoy the same comfort and intimacy, the same affectionate accord, as Fred and Diana? Jo and Phil Blake? Even his own parents? No one could know for sure. Marriage was a leap of faith; a communion of love and trust and hope. Gilbert could not quantify it with science, or prescribe the perfect blend of personality and circumstance. All he could do… was take the leap himself, and hold Anne’s hand firmly in his as they jumped together.

Having talked about his future with Anne with everyone but the lady in question, he was suddenly seized by a desperation to see her; he ached to ask her now; to look into her eyes and know he was home, and home to her. The afternoon summer sun slanted down in sharp shards; he had been walking around in his second-best suit for hours now, and shrugged off his jacket, rolling up his shirt sleeves to boot. Anne had seen him in every mode of dress and every incarnation – even barely dressed in his sickbed – so he didn’t worry about any informality now. He would come to her as his true self; embodying the memory of their rambles together; their past always informing their future.

A ramble in the woods? Back to their apple tree? Down the lane? Their echoes sounded all over this part of Avonlea, but where would be the perfect place? To ask her the question he hoped would be welcomed now; to say how he would lay down his life for her and her happiness; how he would strive every day to be the best possible version of himself in her sight.

He neared Green Gables and his heart quickened; not with trepidation, but with excitement, and the inevitability of the rightness of their union; of their long dance coming to a close. Or more perfectly, a new dance just about to begin.

_"I've come up to ask you to go for one of our old-time rambles through September woods and `over hills where spices grow,' this afternoon," said Gilbert, coming suddenly around the porch corner. _He found his inspiration in the sight of her, hitting upon the idea as he announced it. _"Suppose we visit Hester Gray's garden." _*

_Anne, sitting on the stone step with her lap full of a pale, filmy, green stuff, looked up rather blankly. _She had been thinking on the previous evening; of Gilbert’s look to her as they danced; as they stood together in this very place, staring at one another as Time teased them; still wondering if the leap of lips to his cheek had been inspired or erroneous.

“Gilbert!” Anne breathed to his stuttering smile; in an instant they were back to that moment her mind had just drifted to.

“Hello, Anne,” he greeted, one tanned forearm cradling his jacket, the other thrust into his pocket.

“We missed you at church!” she blurted in her surprise, her grey eyes looking to his imploringly.

“Yes… sorry about that. I had intended to go, but I thought God might forgive me my extended absence more quickly than baby Fred and Diana would.”

Anne smiled fondly at mere mention of the little family. “And how did you find young Master Wright?”

“Red. Fat. Very contented.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“So, what say you, Anne-girl?” he asked.

“Pardon?” Anne started.

“To my suggestion?”

“Suggestion?” Anne squeaked.

“A ramble together up to Hester Gray’s.”

Anne opened her mouth and closed it again, rather adorably, and Gilbert did indeed wonder how he could have gone all these years without kissing that mouth. His hand tightened around the little box in his pocket and his throat around the promise of his yet-delivered words.

_"Oh, I wish I could," she said slowly, "but I really can't, Gilbert.” _Anne succumbed to a great blush under his gaze, and a flustered flapping about with the material in her lap. “_I'm going to Alice Penhallow's wedding this evening, you know. I've got to do something to this dress, and by the time it's finished I'll have to get ready. I'm so sorry. I'd love to go."_

Gilbert swallowed the regret he saw mirrored in her lovely face. Honestly, when had circumstances _not _conspired to separate them? They would laugh about it someday, he hoped, settled in front of a roaring fire, his arm around her waist and her head on his shoulder, spinning the dreams they were on the cusp of dreaming together. He was so close to that moment he could almost taste it on his tongue.

_"Well, can you go tomorrow afternoon, then?" asked Gilbert, apparently not much disappointed._

Her bottom lip trembled as she studied him. _"Yes, I think so."_

His heart calmed. _"In that case I shall hie me home at once to do something I should otherwise have to do tomorrow. So Alice Penhallow is to be married tonight. Three weddings for you in one summer, Anne -- Phil's, Alice's, and Jane's. I'll never forgive Jane for not inviting me to her wedding.”_

At the mere talk of weddings, Anne’s cheeks rose in color again, though her reply was as determinedly merry as her tone.

_"You really can't blame her when you think of the tremendous Andrews connection who had to be invited. The house could hardly hold them all. I was only bidden by grace of being Jane's old chum -- at least on Jane's part. I think Mrs. Harmon's motive for inviting me was to let me see Jane's surpassing gorgeousness." _

_"Is it true that she wore so many diamonds that you couldn't tell where the diamonds left off and Jane began?"_

_Anne laughed._

“Yes, you’ll remember I mentioned it weeks ago. _She certainly wore a good many. What with all the diamonds and white satin and tulle and lace and roses and orange blossoms, prim little Jane was almost lost to sight. But she was VERY happy, and so was Mr. Inglis -- and so was Mrs. Harmon." _

Gilbert tried, and failed, to see Anne herself buried under such a dazzling array of diamonds, and was heartened enormously.

_"Is that the dress you're going to wear tonight?" asked Gilbert, looking down at the fluffs and frills._

_"Yes. Isn't it pretty? And I shall wear starflowers in my hair. The Haunted Wood is full of them this summer."_

_Gilbert had a sudden vision of Anne, arrayed in a frilly green gown, with the virginal curves of arms and throat slipping out of it, and white stars shining against the coils of her ruddy hair. The vision made him catch his breath. But he turned lightly away. _

_"Well, I'll be up tomorrow. Hope you'll have a nice time tonight." _

“Thank you, Gilbert. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Not if I see you first, Carrots,” he winked.

* * *

** _Anne_ **

* * *

_Anne _smiled tremulously and _looked after him as he strode away, and sighed. Gilbert was friendly -- very friendly -- far too friendly. He had come _so_ often to Green Gables after his recovery, and something of their old comradeship had returned, _absolutely; strengthened and deepened and solidified, whereas over the past two years it had felt weightless and elusive. _But Anne no longer found it satisfying, _grateful as she was for it._ The rose of love made the blossom of friendship pale _and scentless by contrast.

_And Anne had again begun to doubt if Gilbert now felt anything for her but friendship. In the common light of common day her radiant certainty of that rapt _long-ago _morning _after the storm_ had faded, _and Gilbert’s easy affability just now made her question everything she had felt last night at the dance. _She was haunted by a miserable fear that her mistake could never be rectified. _Not merely her impulsive kiss, but all the ways she had wronged him since she had first known him. He had forgiven her, but could he ever really forget? _It was quite likely that it was Christine whom Gilbert loved after all. Perhaps he was even engaged to her… _Well, if not engaged, at the very least unable to wait until he arrived back in Kingsport and able to enjoy her company again, unencumbered by her own presence.

_ Anne tried to put all unsettling hopes out of her heart, and reconcile herself to a future where work and ambition must take the place of love. _She was a BA now, and soon to be principal of Summerside High. _She could do good, if not noble, work as a teacher; and the success her little sketches were beginning to meet with in certain editorial sanctums augured well for her budding literary dreams. But -- but -- Anne picked up her green dress and sighed again._

She wandered back into the house, to find Marilla and Rachel looking at her with interest.

“Was that Gilbert Blythe just now?” Marilla asked with careful nonchalance.

“Yes…” Anne confirmed. “He asked to take a walk, but I have the dress to fix for the wedding, you know.”

“You never sent Gilbert away just now, Anne Shirley?” Rachel’s expression betrayed a mild horror at the prospect.

Anne looked, aghast, from matron to spinster. “Was it too rude of me? I didn’t want to send him off, I really didn’t, but how could I go with him and still get ready for tonight?”

“Just so, Anne…” Marilla soothed, casting a furtive look of thunder to Rachel. “Rachel, would you mind fetching my sewing basket? I think I have just the thread Anne will need for her dress.”

Rachel’s mouth puckered as if confronted by a lemon or three, and turned on her heel, muttering darkly to herself.

“_Was _it wrong of me, Marilla?” Anne pleaded. “I can never seem to do the right thing where Gil’s concerned! I explained about the wedding… the invitations were issued when he was sick, you see… He said he would call again tomorrow, but oh, I feel awful now!”

“Anne, don’t fret.”

“What if I… if I’ve…”

“If you’ve _what?_”

“If I’ve pushed him away? I always seem to do that.”

“Did he not say he was coming back tomorrow?”

“Yes…”

“And don’t you have faith in him to do so?”

A hearty sigh. “Yes.”

“Well then, Anne. Trust in Gilbert, and in his word. It’s as true as his heart.”

Grey-green eyes looked to her the same way they had looked when Marilla had announced Anne could stay at Green Gables; so full of hard-won hope, ever fearing what and whom she loved would be taken from her. Had it really been ten years ago?

And now, that sweet-souled scrap of a thing, girl no longer, was on the threshold of another life-altering exchange. She would cease belonging just to she and Matthew, and to this house; she would begin to be safeguarded by another, and find her future and her dreams and her happiness and her hope with him. This night was, perhaps, the last time Anne would belong fully to _her; _and as much as Marilla Cuthbert had longed for this day, the bittersweet tang of her own revelation swept her up unexpectedly.

Anne reached up and kissed her cheek, flinging those still-slim arms around her neck and pressing briefly but lovingly.

Rachel was the one to note the tears in Marilla’s eyes as she turned away, knowing something herself, may times over, of this betwixt time; when a daughter was not quite the daughter of yesterday but not yet the daughter of tomorrow. She directed Anne to the sewing basket with enthusiasm, and generously gifted a perfect little panel of lace that would do nicely for the bodice of the dress, receiving a kiss of her own in gratitude.

“You’d best be off to make yourself presentable for the Penhallows,” Rachel decreed. “Goodness knows what sort of airs they are putting on, hosting a Sunday wedding. It’s downright sacrilegious!”

Anne smiled and wisely made no reply, having learned to hold her tongue somewhat since her first exchange with Rachel Lynde, in the same way the widow had learned to soften hers. Marilla smiled too, though the action was rarer; realising through her love for this girl that she could have a smile on her face and have others see it and the world would not end. Marilla smiled delightedly when Anne came down the stairs in her lovely green dress of froth and fancy, as she and Rachel were enjoying their tea, and the smile was still on her face as she slipped into her dream, of long-ago days and long-legged callers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Hello again, canon! All italicised passages taken, naturally, from Anne of the Island (Ch 41) with apologies for any liberties, additions and tweaks.

**Author's Note:**

> *Anne of Green Gables (Ch 33)


End file.
